LUCIA'S PROGRESS
PART 11
CHAPTER XI
The holiday season came round with August, and, as usual, the householders of the Tilling social circle let their own houses, and went to live in smaller ones, thereby not only getting a change of environment, but making, instead of spending, money on their holiday, for they received a higher rent for the houses they quitted than they paid for the houses they took. The Mapp-Flints were the first to move: Elizabeth inserted an advertisement in the Times in order to save those monstrous fees of house agents and instantly got an enquiry from a most desirable tenant, no less than the widow of a Baronet. In view of her rank, Elizabeth asked for and obtained a higher rent than she had ever netted at Mallards, and, as on her honeymoon, she took a very small bungalow near the sea, deficient in plumbing, but otherwise highly salubrious, and as she touchingly remarked "so near the golf links for my Benjy-boy. He will be as happy as the day is long." She was happy, too, for the rent she received for Grebe was five times what (after a little bargaining) she paid for this shack which would be so perfect for her Benjy-boy.
Her new tenant was interesting: she had forty-seven canaries, each in its own cage, and the noise of their pretty chirping could be heard if the wind was favourable a full quarter of a mile from the house. It was ascertained that she personally cleaned out all their cages every morning, which accounted for her not being seen in Tilling till after lunch. She then rode into the town on a tricycle and bought rape seed and groundsel in prodigious quantities. She had no dealings with the butcher, so it was speedily known, and thus was probably a vegetarian; and Diva, prowling round Grebe one Friday morning, saw her clad in a burnous, kneeling on a carpet in the garden and prostrating herself in an eastward position. It might therefore be inferred that she was a Mahommedan as well.
This was all very satisfactory, a titled lady, of such marked idiosyncrasies, was evidently a very promising addition to Tilling society, and Diva, not wishing to interrupt her devotions, went quietly away, greatly impressed, and called next day, meaning to follow up this formality with an invitation to a vegetarian lunch. But even as she waited at the front door a window directly above was thrown open, and a shrill voice shouted "Not at home. Ever." So Diva took the tram out to the golf links, and told Elizabeth that her tenant was certainly a lunatic. Elizabeth was much disturbed, and spent an hour every afternoon for the next three days in hiding behind the horn-beam hedge at Grebe, spying upon her. Lucia thought that Diva's odd appearance might have accounted for this chilling reception and called herself. Certainly nobody shouted at her, but nobody answered the bell and, after a while, pieces of groundsel rained down on her, probably from the same upper window. . . . The Padre let the Vicarage for August and September, and took a bungalow close to the Mapp-Flints. He and Major Benjy played golf during the day and the four played hectic Bridge in the evening.
Diva at present had not succeeded in letting her house, even at a very modest rental, and so she remained in the High Street. One evening horrid fumes of smoke laden with soot came into her bathroom where she was refreshing herself before dinner, and she found that they came down the chimney from the kitchen of the house next door. The leakage in the flue was localized, and it appeared that Diva was responsible for it, since, for motives of economy, which seemed sound at the time, she had caused the overflow pipe from her cistern to be passed through it. The owner of the house next door most obligingly promised not to use his range till Diva had the damage to the flue repaired, but made shift with his gas-ring, since he was genuinely anxious not to suffocate her when she was washing. But Diva could not bring herself to spend nine pounds (a frightful sum) on the necessary work on the chimney, and for the next ten days took no further steps.
Then Irene found a tenant for her house, and took that of Diva's neighbour. He explained to her that just at present, until Mrs. Plaistow repaired a faulty flue, the kitchen range could not be used, and suggested that Irene might put a little pressure on her, since this state of things had gone on for nearly a fortnight, and his repeated reminders had had no effect. So Irene put pressure, and on the very evening of the day she moved in, she and Lucy lit an enormous fire in her range, though the evening was hot, and waited to see what effect that would have. Diva happened to be again in her bath, musing over the terrible expense she would be put to: nine pounds meant the saving of five shillings a week for the best part of a year. These gloomy meditations were interrupted by volumes of acrid smoke pouring through the leak, and she sprang out of her bath, convinced that the house was on fire, and without drying herself she threw on her dressing-gown. She had left the bathroom door open: thick vapours followed her downstairs. She hastily dressed and with her servant and Paddy wildly barking at her heels flew into the High Street and hammered on Irene's door.
Irene, flushed with stoking, came upstairs.
"So I've smoked you out," she said. "Serve you right."
"I believe my house is on fire," cried Diva. "Never saw such smoke in my life."
"Call the fire-engine then," said Irene. "Goodbye: I must put some more damp wood on. And mind, I'll keep that fire burning day and night, if I don't get a wink of sleep, till you've had that flue repaired."
"Please, please," cried Diva in agony. "No more damp wood, I beg. I promise. It shall be done to-morrow."
"Well, apologise for being such a damned nuisance," said Irene. "You've made me and Lucy roast ourselves over the fire. Not to mention the expense of the firing."
"Yes. I apologise. Anything!" wailed Diva. "And I shall have to re-paper my bathroom. Kippered."
"Your own fault. Did you imagine I was going to live on a gas-ring, because you wouldn't have your chimney repaired?"
Then Diva got a tenant in spite of the kippered bathroom, and moved to a dilapidated hovel close beside the railway line, which she got for half the rent which she received for her house. Passing trains shook its crazy walls and their whistlings woke her at five in the morning, but its cheapness gilded these inconveniences, and she declared it was delightful to be awakened betimes on these August days. The Wyses went out to Capri to spend a month with the Faragliones, and so now the whole of the Tilling circle, with the exception of Georgie and Lucia, were having change and holiday to the great advantage of their purses. They alone remained in their adjoining abodes and saw almost as much of each other as during those weeks when Georgie was having shingles and growing his beard in hiding at Grebe. Lucia gave her mornings to finance and the masterpieces of the Greek tragedians, and in this piping weather recuperated herself with a siesta after lunch. Then in the evening coolness they motored and sketched or walked over the field-paths of the marsh, dined together and had orgies of Mozartino. All the time (even during her siesta) Lucia's head was as full of plans as an egg of meat, and she treated Georgie to spoonfuls of it.
They were approaching the town on one such evening from the south. The new road, now finished, curved round the bottom of the hill on which the town stood: above it was a bare bank with tufts of coarse grass rising to the line of the ancient wall.
Lucia stood with her head on one side regarding it.
"An ugly patch," she said. "It offends the eye, Georgie. It is not in harmony with the mellow brick of the wall. It should be planted. I seem to see it covered with almond trees; those late flowering ones. Pink blossom, a foam of pink blossom for la bella Primavera. I estimate that it would require at least fifty young trees. I shall certainly offer to give them to the town and see to them being put in."
"That would look lovely," said Georgie.
"It shall look lovely. Another thing. I'm going to stop my financial career for the present. I shall sell out my tobacco shares--realize them is the phrase we use--on which I have made large profits. I pointed out to my broker, that, in my opinion, tobaccos were high enough, and he sees the soundness of that."
Georgie silently interpreted this swanky statement. It meant, of course, that Mammoncash had recommended their sale; but there was no need to express this. He murmured agreement.
"Also I must rid myself of this continual strain," Lucia went on. "I am ashamed of myself, but I find it absorbs me too much: it keeps me on the stretch to be always watching the markets and estimating the effect of political disturbances. The Polish corridor, Hitler, Geneva, the new American president. I shall close my ledgers."
They climbed in silence up the steep steps by the Norman tower. They were in considerable need of repair, and Lucia, contemplating the grey bastion in front, stumbled badly over an uneven paving-stone.
"These ought to be looked to," she said. "I must make a note of that."
"Are you going to have them repaired?" asked Georgie humorously.
"Quite possibly. You see, I've made a great deal of money, Georgie. I've made eight thousand pounds--"
"My dear, what a sum. I'd no notion."
"Naturally one does not talk about it," said Lucia loftily. "But there it is, and I shall certainly spend a great deal of it, keeping some for myself--the labourer is worthy of his hire--on Tilling. I want--how can I put it--to be a fairy godmother to the dear little place. For instance, I expect the plans for my new operating-theatre at the hospital in a day or two. That I regard as necessary. I have told the Mayor that I shall provide it, and he will announce my gift to the Governors when they meet next week. He is terribly keen that I should accept a place on the Board: really he's always worrying me about it. I think I shall allow him to nominate me. My election, he says, will be a mere formality, and will give great pleasure."
Georgie agreed. He felt he was getting an insight into Lucia's schemes, for it was impossible not to remember that after her gift of the organ she reluctantly consented to be a member of the Church Council.
"And do you know, Georgie," she went on, "they elected me only to-day to be President of the Tilling Cricket Club. Fancy! Twenty pounds did that--I mean I was only too glad to give them the heavy roller which they want very much, and I was never more astonished in my life than when those two nice young fellows, the foreman of the gas works and the town surveyor--"
"Oh yes, Georgie and Per," said he, "who laughed so much over the smell in the garden-room, and started you on your Roman--"
"Those were their names," said Lucia. "They came to see me and begged me to allow them to nominate me as their President, and I was elected unanimously to-day. I promised to appear at a cricket match they have to-morrow against a team they called the Zingari. I hope they did not see me shudder, for as you know it should be 'I Zingâri': the Italian for 'gipsies.' And the whole of their cricket ground wants levelling and relaying. I shall walk over it with them, and look into it for myself."
"I didn't know you took any interest in any game," said Georgie.
"Georgino, how you misjudge me! I've always held, always, that games and sport are among the strongest and most elevating influences in English life. Think of Lord's, and all those places where they play football, and the Lonsdale belt for boxing, and Wimbledon. Think of the crowds here, for that matter, at cricket and football matches on early closing days. Half the townspeople of Tilling are watching them: Tilling takes an immense interest in sport. They all tell me that people will much appreciate my becoming their President. You must come with me to-morrow to the match."
"But I don't know a bat from a ball," said Georgie.
"Nor do I, but we shall soon learn. I want to enter into every side of life here. We are too narrow in our interests. We must get a larger outlook, Georgie, a wider sympathy. I understand they play football on the cricket ground in the winter."
"Football's a sealed book to me," said Georgie, "and I don't intend to unseal it."
They had come back to Mallards, and Lucia standing on the doorstep looked over the cobbled street with its mellow brick houses.
"Bella piccolo città!" she exclaimed. "Dinner at eight here, isn't it, and bring some musica. How I enjoy our little domestic evenings."
"Domestic": just the word "domestic" stuck in Georgie's mind as he touched up his beard, and did a little sewing while it dried, before he dressed for dinner. It nested in his head, like a woodpecker, and gave notice of its presence there by a series of loud taps at frequent intervals. No doubt Lucia was only referring to their usual practice of dining together and playing the piano afterwards, or sitting (even more domestically) as they often did, each reading a book in easy silence with casual remarks. Such a mode of spending the evening was infinitely pleasanter and more sensible than that they should sit, she at Mallards and he at the Cottage, over solitary meals and play long solos on their pianos instead of those adventurous duets. No doubt she had meant nothing more than that by the word.
The party from the bungalows, the Mapp-Flints and the Padre and his wife, came into Tilling next day to see the cricket match. They mingled with the crowd and sat on public benches, and Elizabeth observed with much uneasiness how Lucia and Georgie were conducted by the town surveyor to reserved deck-chairs by the pavilion: she was afraid that meant something sinister. Lucia had put a touch of sun-burn rouge on her face, in order to convey the impression that she often spent a summer day watching cricket, and she soon learned the difference between bats and balls: but she should have studied the game a little more before she asked Per, when three overs had been bowled and no wicket had fallen, who was getting the best of it. A few minutes later a Tilling wicket fell and Per went in. He immediately skied a ball in the direction of long on, and Lucia clapped her hands wildly. "Oh, look, Georgie," she said. "What a beautiful curve the ball is describing! And so high. Lovely . . . What? Has he finished already?"
Tilling was out for eighty-seven runs, and between the inningses, Lucia, in the hat which the Hastings Chronicle had already described, was escorted out to look at the pitch by the merry brothers. She had learned so much about cricket in the last hour that her experienced eye saw at once that the greater part of the field ought to be levelled and the turf relaid. Nobody took any particular notice of Georgie, so while Lucia was inspecting the pitch he slunk away and lunched at home. She, as President of the Tilling Club, lunched with the two teams in the pavilion, and found several opportunities of pronouncing the word Zingâri properly.
The bungalow-party having let their houses picnicked on sandwiches and indulged in gloomy conjecture as to what Lucia's sudden appearance in sporting circles signified. Then Benjy walked up to the Club nominally to see if there were any letters for him and actually to have liquid refreshment to assuage the thirst caused by the briny substances which Elizabeth had provided for lunch, and brought back the sickening intelligence that Lucia had been elected President of the Tilling Cricket Club.
"I'm not in the least surprised," said Elizabeth. "I suspected something of the sort. Nor shall I be surprised if she plays football for Tilling in the winter. Shorts, and a jersey of Tilling colours. Probably that hat."
Satire, it was felt, had said its last word.
The Hastings Chronicle on the next Saturday was a very painful document. It contained a large-print paragraph on its middle page headed "Munificent Gift by Mrs. Lucas of Mallards House, Tilling." Those who felt equal to reading further then learnt that she had most graciously consented to become President of the Tilling Cricket Club, and had offered, at the Annual General Meeting of the Club, held after the XI's match against the Zingâri, to have the cricket field levelled and relaid. She had personally inspected it (so said Mrs. Lucas in her Presidential address) and was convinced that Tilling would never be able to do itself justice at the King of Games till this was done. She therefore considered it a privilege, as President of the Club, in which she had always taken so deep an interest, to undertake this work (loud and prolonged applause) . . . This splendid gift would benefit footballers as well as cricketers since they used the same ground, and the Committee of the football club, having ascertained Mrs. Lucas's feelings on the subject, had unanimously elected her as President.
The very next week there were more of these frightful revelations. Again there was that headline, "Munificent Gift, etc!" This time it was the Tilling Hospital. At a meeting of the Governors the Mayor announced that Mrs. Lucas (already known as the Friend of the Poor) had offered to build a new operating-theatre, and to furnish it with the most modern equipment according to the plan and schedule which he now laid before them--
Elizabeth was reading this aloud to Benjy, as they lunched in the verandah of their bungalow, in an indignant voice. At this point she covered up with her hand the remainder of the paragraph.
"Mark my words, Benjy," she said. "I prophesy that what happened next was that the Governors accepted this gift with the deepest gratitude and did themselves the honour of inviting her to a seat on the Board."
It was all too true, and Elizabeth finished the stewed plums in silence. She rose to make coffee.
"The Hastings Chronicle ought to keep 'Munificent Gift by Mrs. Lucas of Mallards House, Tilling,' permanently set up in type," she observed. "And 'House' is new. In my day and Aunt Caroline's before me, 'Mallards' was grand enough. It will be 'Mallards Palace' before she's finished with it."
But with this last atrocity, the plague of munificences was stayed for the present. August cooled down into September, and September disgraced itself at the season of its spring tides by brewing a terrific southwest gale. The sea heaped up by the continued press of the wind broke through the shingle bank on the coast and flooded the low land behind, where some of the bungalows stood. That inhabited by the Padre and Evie was built on a slight elevation and escaped being inundated, but the Mapp-Flints were swamped. Nearly a foot of water covered the rooms on the ground floor, and until it subsided, the house was uninhabitable unless you treated it like a palazzo on the Grand Canal at Venice, and had a gondola moored to the banisters of the stairs. News of the disaster was brought to Tilling by the Padre when he bicycled in to take Mattins on Sunday morning. He met Lucia at the church door, and in a few vivid sentences described how the unfortunate couple had waded ashore. They had breakfasted with him and Evie and would lunch and sup there, but then they would have to wade back again to sleep, since he had no spare room. A sad holiday experience: and he hurried off to the vestry to robe.
The beauty of her organ wrought upon Lucia, for she had asked the organist to play Falberg's "Storm at Sea" as a voluntary at the end of the service, and, as she listened, the inexorable might of Nature, of which the Mapp-Flints were victims, impressed itself on her. Moreover she really enjoyed dispensing benefits with a bountiful hand on the worthy and unworthy alike, and by the time the melodious storm was over she had made up her mind to give board and lodging to the refugees until the salt water had ebbed from their ground-floor rooms. Grebe was still let and resonant with forty-seven canaries, and she must shelter them, as Noah took back the dove sent out over the waste of waters, in the Ark of their old home . . . She joined softly in the chorale of passengers and sailors, and left the church with Georgie.
"I shall telephone to them at once, Georgie," she said, "and offer to take them in at Mallards House. The car shall fetch them after lunch."
"I wouldn't," said Georgie. "Why shouldn't they go to an hotel?"
"Caro, simply because they wouldn't go," said Lucia. "They would continue to wade to their beds and sponge on the Padre. Besides if their bungalow collapsed--it is chiefly made of laths tied together with pieces of string and pebbles from the shore--and buried them in the ruins, I should truly regret it. Also I welcome the opportunity of doing a kindness to poor Elizabeth. Mallards House will always be at the service of the needy. I imagine it will only be for a day or two. You must promise to lunch and dine with me, won't you, as long as they are with me, for I don't think I could bear them alone."
Lucia adopted the seignorial manner suitable to the donor of organs and operating-theatres. She instructed Grosvenor to telephone in the most cordial terms to Mrs. Mapp-Flint, and wrote out what she should say. Mrs. Lucas could not come to the telephone herself at that moment, but she sent her sympathy, and insisted on their making Mallards House their home, till the bungalow was habitable again: she thought she could make them quite comfortable in her little house. Elizabeth of course accepted her hospitality though it was odd that she had not telephoned herself. So Lucia made arrangements for the reception of her guests. She did not intend to give up her bedroom and dressing-room which they had occupied before, since it would be necessary to bring another bed in, and it would be very inconvenient to turn out herself. Besides, so it happily occurred to her, it would arouse very poignant emotion if they found themselves in their old nuptial chamber. Elizabeth should have the pleasant room looking over the garden, and Benjy the one at the end of the passage, and the little sitting-room next Elizabeth's should be devoted to their exclusive use. That would be princely hospitality, and thus the garden-room, where she always sat, would not be invaded during the day. After tea, they might play Bridge there, and of course use it after dinner for more Bridge or music. Then it was time to send Cadman with the motor to fetch them, and Lucia furnished it with a thick fur rug and a hot water-bottle in case they had caught cold with their wadings. She put a Sunday paper in their sitting-room, and strewed a few books about to give it an inhabited air, and went out as usual for her walk, for it would be more in the seigniorial style if Grosvenor settled them in, and she herself casually returned about tea-time, certain that everything would have been done for their comfort.
This sumptuous insouciance a little miscarried, for though Grosvenor had duly conducted the visitors to their own private sitting-room, they made a quiet little pilgrimage through the house while she was unpacking for them, peeped into the Office, and were sitting in the garden-room when Lucia returned.
"So sorry to be out when you arrived, dear Elizabeth," she said, "but I knew Grosvenor would make you at home."
Elizabeth sprang up from her old seat in the window. (What a bitter joy it was to survey from there again.)
"Dear Lucia," she cried. "Too good of you to take in the poor homeless ones. Putting you out dreadfully, I'm afraid."
"Not an atom. Tutto molto facile. And there's the parlour upstairs ready for you, which I hope Grosvenor showed you."
"Indeed she did," said Elizabeth effusively. "Deliciously cosy. So kind."
"And what a horrid experience you must have had," said Lucia. Tea will be ready: let us go in."
"A waste of waters," said Elizabeth impressively, "and a foot deep in the dining-room. We had to have a boat to take our luggage away. It reminded Benjy of the worst floods on the Jumna."
"'Pon my word, it did," said Benjy, "and I shouldn't wonder if there's more to come. The wind keeps up, and there's the highest of the spring tides to-night. Total immersion of the Padre, perhaps. Ha! Ha! Baptism of those of Riper Years."
"Naughty!" said Elizabeth. Certainly the Padre had been winning at Bridge all this week, but that hardly excused levity over things sacramental, and besides he had given them lunch and breakfast. Lucia also thought his joke in poor taste and called attention to her dahlias. She had cut a new flower-bed, where there had once stood a very repulsive weeping-ash, which had been planted by Aunt Caroline, and which, to Elizabeth's pretty fancy, had always seemed to mourn for her. She suddenly felt its removal very poignantly, and not trusting herself to speak about that, called attention to the lovely red admiral butterflies on the buddleia. With which deft changes of subjects they went in to tea. Georgie and Bridge, and dinner, and more Bridge followed, and Lucia observed with strong misgivings that Elizabeth left her bag and Benjy his cigar-case in the garden room when they went to bed. This seemed to portend their return there in the morning, so she called attention to their forgetfulness. Elizabeth on getting upstairs had a further lapse of memory, for she marched into Lucia's bedroom, which she particularly wanted to see, before she recollected that it was no longer her own.
Lucia was rung up at breakfast next morning by the Padre. There was more diluvian news from the shore, and his emotion caused him to speak pure English without a trace of Scotch or Irish. A tide, higher than ever, had caused a fresh invasion of the sea, and now his bungalow was islanded, and the gale had torn a quantity of slates from the roof. Georgie, he said, had kindly offered to take him in, as the Vicarage was still let, and he waited in silence until Lucia asked him where Evie was going. He didn't know, and Lucia's suggestion that she should come to Mallards House was very welcome. She promised to send her car to bring them in and rejoined her guests.
"More flooding," she said, "just as you prophesied, Major Benjy. So Evie is coming here, and Georgie will take the Padre. I'm sure you won't mind moving on to the attic floor, and letting her have your room."
Benjy's face fell.
"Oh, dear me, no," he said heartily. "I've roughed it before now."
"We shall be quite a party," said Elizabeth without any marked enthusiasm, for she supposed that Evie would share their sitting-room.
Lucia went to see to her catering, and her guests to their room, taking the morning papers with them.
"I should have thought that Diva might have taken Evie in, or she might have gone to the King's Arms," said Elizabeth musingly. "But dear Lucia revels in being Lady Bountiful. Gives her real pleasure."
"I don't much relish sleeping in one of those attics," said Benjy. "Draughty places with sloping roofs if I remember right."
Elizabeth's pride in her ancestral home flickered up.
"They're better than any rooms in the house you had before we married, darling," she said. "And not quite tactful to have told her you had roughed it before now . . . Was your haddock at breakfast quite what it should be?"
"Perfectly delicious," said Benjy hitting back. "It's a treat to get decent food again after that garbage we've been having."
"Thank you dear," said Elizabeth.
She picked up a paper, read it for a moment and decided to make common cause with him.
"Now I come to think of it," she said, "it would have been easy enough for Lucia not to have skied you to the attics. You and I could have had her old bedroom and dressing-room, and there would have been the other two rooms for her and Evie. But we must take what's given us and be thankful. What I do want to know is whether we're allowed in the garden-room unless she asks us. She seemed to give you your cigar-case and me my bag last night rather purposefully. Not that this is a bad room by any means."
"It'll get stuffy enough this afternoon," said he, "for it's going to rain all day and I suppose there'll be three of us here."
Elizabeth sighed.
"I suppose it didn't occur to her to take this room herself, and give her guests the garden-room," she said. "Not selfish at all: I don't mean that, but perhaps a little wanting in imagination. I'll go down to the garden-room presently and see how the land lies. . . . There's the telephone ringing again. That's the third time since breakfast. She's arranging football matches, I expect. Oh, the Daily Mirror has got hold of her gift to the hospital. 'Most munificent': how tired I am of the word. Of course it's the silly season still."
Had Elizabeth known what that third telephone call was, she would have called the season by a more serious name than silly. The speaker was the Mayor, who now asked Lucia if she could see him privately for a few moments. She told him that it would be quite convenient, and might have added that it was also very exciting. Was there perhaps another Board which desired to have the honour of her membership? The Literary Institute? The Workhouse? The--. Back she went to the garden-room and hurriedly sat down at her piano and began communing with Beethoven. She was so absorbed in her music that she gave a startled little cry when Grosvenor, raising her voice to an unusual pitch called out for the second time: "The Mayor of Tilling!" Up she sprang.
"Ah, good morning, Mr. Mayor," she cried. "So glad. Grosvenor, I'm not to be interrupted. I was just snatching a few minutes, as I always do after breakfast, at my music. It tunes me in--don't they call it--for the work of the day. Now, how can I serve you?"
His errand quite outshone the full splendour of Lucia's imagination. A member of the Town Council had just resigned, owing to ill-health, and the Mayor was on his way to an emergency meeting. The custom was, he explained, if such a vacancy occurred during the course of the year, that no fresh election should be held, but that the other members of the Council should co-opt a temporary member to serve till the next elections came round. Would she therefore permit him to suggest her name?
Lucia sat with her chin in her hand in the music attitude. Certainly that was an enormous step upwards from having been equal with Elizabeth at the bottom of the poll . . . Then she began to speak in a great hurry, for she thought she heard a footfall on the stairs into the garden-room. Probably Elizabeth had eluded Grosvenor.
"How I appreciate the honour," she said. "But--but how I should hate to feel that the dear townsfolk would not approve. The last elections, you know . . . Ah, I see what is in your mind. You think that since then they realize a little more the sincerity of my desire to forward Tilling's welfare to the best of my humble capacity." (There came a tap at the door.) "I see I shall have to yield and, if your colleagues wish it, I gladly accept the great honour."
The door had opened a chink; Elizabeth's ears had heard the words "great honour," and now her mouth (she had eluded Grosvenor) said:
"May I come in, dear?"
"Entrate," said Lucia. "Mr. Mayor, do you know Mrs. Mapp-Flint? You must! Such an old inhabitant of dear Tilling. Dreadful floods out by the links, and several friends, Major and Mrs. Mapp-Flint and the Padre and Mrs. Bartlett are all washed out. But such a treat for me, for I am taking them in, and have quite a party. Mallards House and I are always at the service of our citizens. But I mustn't detain you. You will let me know whether the meeting accepts your suggestion? I shall be eagerly waiting."
Lucia insisted on seeing the Mayor to the front door, but returned at once to the garden-room, which had been thus violated by Elizabeth.
"I hope your sitting-room is comfortable, Elizabeth," she said. "You've got all you want there? Sure?"
The desire to know what those ominous words "great honour" could possibly signify, consumed Elizabeth like a burning fire, and she was absolutely impervious to the hint so strongly conveyed to her.
"Delicious, dear," she enthusiastically replied. "So cosy, and Benjy so happy with his cigar and his paper. But didn't I hear the piano going just now? Sounded so lovely. May I sit mum as a mouse and listen?"
Lucia could not quite bring herself to say "No, go away," but she felt she must put her foot down. She had given her visitors a sitting-room of their own, and did not intend to have them here in the morning. Perhaps if she put her foot down on what she always called the sostenuto pedal, and played loud scales and exercises she could render the room intolerable to any listener.
"By all means," she said. "I have to practice very hard every morning to keep my poor fingers from getting rusty, or Georgie scolds me over our duets."
Elizabeth slid into her familiar place in the window where she could observe the movements of Tilling, conducted chiefly this morning under umbrellas, and Lucia began. C Major up and down till her fingers ached with their unaccustomed drilling: then a few firm chords in that jovial key.
"Lovely chords! Such harmonies," said Elizabeth, seeing Lucia's motor draw up at Mallards Cottage and deposit the Padre and his suit-case.
C Minor. This was more difficult. Lucia found that the upward scale was not the same as the downward, and she went over it half-a-dozen times, rumbling at first at the bottom end of the piano and then shrieking at the top and back again, before she got it right. A few simple minor chords followed.
"That wonderful funeral march," said Elizabeth absently. Evie had thrust her head out of the window of the motor, and, to anybody who had any perception, was quite clearly telling Georgie, who had come to the door, about the flood, for she lowered and then raised her podgy little paw, evidently showing how much the flood had risen during the night.
As she watched, Lucia had begun to practice shakes, including that very difficult one for the third and fourth fingers.
"Like the sweet birdies in my garden," said Elizabeth, still absently (though nothing could possibly have been less like), "thrushes and blackbirds and . . ." Her voice trailed into silence as the motor moved on, down the street towards Mallards, minus the Padre and his suit-case.
"And here's Evie just arriving," she said, thinking that Lucia would stop that hideous noise, and go out to welcome her guest. Not a bit of it: the scale of D Major followed: it was markedly slower because her fingers were terribly fatigued. Then Grosvenor came in. She left the door open, and a strong draught blew round Elizabeth's ankles.
"Yes, Grosvenor?" said Lucia, with her hands poised over the keys.
"The Mayor has rung up, ma'am," said Grosvenor, "and would like to speak to you, if you are disengaged."
The Mayoral call was irresistible, and Lucia went to the telephone in her Office. Elizabeth, crazy with curiosity, followed, and instantly became violently interested in the book-case in the hall, where she hoped she could hear Lucia's half, at any rate, of the conversation. After two or three gabbling, quacking noises, her voice broke jubilantly in.
"Indeed, I am most highly honoured, Mr. Mayor--" she began. Then, unfortunately for the cause of the dissemination of useful knowledge, she caught sight of Elizabeth in the hall just outside with an open book in her hand, and smartly shut the Office door. Having taken this sensible precaution she continued:
"Please assure my colleagues, as I understand that the Town Council is sitting now, that I will resolutely shoulder the responsibility of my position."
"Should you be unoccupied at the moment, Mrs. Lucas," said the Mayor, "perhaps you would come and take part in the business that lies before us, as you are now a member of the Council."
"By all means," cried Lucia. "I will be with you in a couple of minutes."
Elizabeth had replaced the fourth volume of Pepys' Diary upside down, and had stolen up closer to the Office door, where her footfall was noiseless on the india-rubber. Simultaneously Grosvenor came into the hall to open the front door to Evie, and Lucia came out of the Office, nearly running into Elizabeth.
"Admiring your lovely india-rubber matting, dear," said Elizabeth adroitly. "So pussy-cat quiet."
Lucia hardly seemed to see her.
"Grosvenor: my hat, my raincoat, my umbrella at once," she cried. "I've got to go out. Delighted to see you, dear Evie. So sorry to be called away. A little soup or a sandwich after your drive? Elizabeth will show you the sitting-room upstairs. Lunch at half-past one: begin whether I'm in or not. No, Grosvenor, my new hat--"
"It's raining, ma'am," said Grosvenor.
"I know it is, or I shouldn't want my umbrella."
Her feet twinkled nearly as nimbly as Diva's as she sped through the rain to the mayor's parlour at the Town Hall. The assembled Council rose to their feet as she entered, and the Mayor formally presented them to the new colleague whom they had just co-opted: Per of the gas works, and Georgie of the drains and Twistevant the greengrocer. Just now Twistevant was looking morose, for the report of the Town-Surveyor about his slum-dwellings had been received, and this dire document advised that eight of his houses should be condemned as insanitary, and pulled down. The next item on the agenda was Lucia's offer of fifty almond trees (or more if desirable) to beautify in spring-time the bare grass slope to the south of the town. She said a few diffident words about the privilege of being allowed to make a little garden there, and intimated that she would pay for the enrichment of the soil and the planting of the trees and any subsequent upkeep, so that not a penny should fall on the rates. The offer was gratefully accepted with the applause of knuckles on the table, and as she was popular enough for the moment, she deferred announcing her project for the relaying of the steps by the Norman Tower. Half-an-hour more sufficed for the rest of the business before the Town Councillors.
Treading on air, Lucia dropped in at Mallards Cottage to tell Georgie the news. The Padre had just gone across to Mallards, for Evie and he had got into a remarkable muddle that morning packing their bags in such a hurry: he had to recover his shaving equipment from hers, and take her a few small articles of female attire.
"I think I had better tell them all about my appointment at once, Georgie," she said, "for they are sure to hear about it very soon, and if Elizabeth has a bilious attack from chagrin, the sooner it's over the better. My dear, how tiresome she has been already! She came and sat in the garden-room, which I don't intend that anybody shall do in the morning, and so I began playing scales and shakes to smoke her out. Then she tried to overhear my conversation on the Office telephone with the Mayor--"
"And did she?" asked Georgie greedily.
"I don't think so. I banged the door when I saw her in the hall. You and the Padre will have all your meals with me, won't you, till they go, but if this rain continues, it looks as if they might be here till they get back into their own houses again. Let me sit quietly with you till lunch-time, for we shall have them all on our hands for the rest of the day."
"I think we've been too hospitable," said Georgie. "One can overdo it. If the Padre sits and talks to me all morning, I shall have to live in my bedroom. Foljambe doesn't like it, either. He's called her 'my lassie' already."
"No!" said Lucia. "She'd hate that. Oh, and Benjy looked as black as ink when I told him I must give up his room to Evie. But we must rejoice, Georgie, that we're able to do something for the poor things."
"Rejoice isn't quite the word," said Georgie firmly.
Lucia returned to Mallards a little after half-past one, and went up to the sitting-room she had assigned to her guests and tapped on the door before entering. That might convey to Elizabeth's obtuse mind that this was their private room, and she might infer, by implication, that the garden-room was Lucia's private room. But this little moral lesson was wasted, for the room was empty except for stale cigar-smoke. She went to the dining-room, for they might, as desired, have begun lunch. Empty also. She went to the garden-room, and even as she opened the door, Elizabeth's voice rang out.
"No, Padre, my card was not covered," she said. "Uncovered."
"An exposed card whatever then, Mistress Mapp," said the Padre.
"Come, come, Mapp-Flint, Padre," said Benjy.
"Oh, there's dearest Lucia!" cried Elizabeth. "I thought it was Grosvenor come to tell us that lunch was ready. Such a dismal morning; we thought we would have a little game of cards to pass the time. No card-table in our cosy parlour upstairs."
"Of course you shall have one," said Lucia.
"And you've done your little businesses?" asked Elizabeth.
Lucia was really sorry for her, but the blow must be dealt.
"Yes: I attended a meeting of the Town Council. But there was very little business."
"The Town Council, did you say?" asked the stricken woman.
"Yes: they did me the honour to co-opt me, for a member has resigned owing to ill-health. I felt it my duty to fill the vacancy. Let us go in to lunch."
To be continued
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