It might have been supposed that the outbreak of war would have broken the spirit of Mrs. Emmeline Pillson, formerly Lucas, née Smythe, always Lucia, three times Mayor of Tilling. Nothing could be further from the truth. Had not Lucia been forced on many occasions to fight desperate battles to retain her rightful position as Queen of Tilling society against the awesome figure of Elizabeth App-Flint? Had not her little realm on so many occasions been overrun, as Hitler had overrun the Sudetenland, and had she not always risen phoenix-like from the ashes of her supposed defeat and triumphantly driven the pretender and the infidel in full flight? Hitler, be he never so formidable, could scarcely be as savage, as unprincipled an opponent as dear Elizabeth (three times Mayoress of Tilling).
The enemy had, of course, started with many advantages. Given the international situation, Italian—which it had never been conclusively proved that Lucia could not speak fluently—was banished from the dinner-tables and Bridge parties of Tilling. Mozart—celestial Mozartino!—was a German, as was Immortal Beethoven, and the transcendent beauty of the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata was almost forgotten in the garden-room at Mallards. This unexpected treason on the part of her most trusted allies had left Lucia momentarily at a disadvantage; but her unquenchable spirit was only scotched, not slain. Where Mozart and Beethoven had reigned, there would be Elgar, Rowland and Purcell. Instead of Italian she would punctuate her conversation with ...
Certainly the outbreak of war had upset the social order of Tilling. The Wyses, linked by marriage with the Italian aristocracy, were little better than uninterned aliens. But Major Benjamin App-Flint, the town’s only resident warrior, enjoyed an esteem even greater than had been his when, on one never to be forgotten occasion, he had briefly (and erroneously) been clothed in the glamour of the desperate duellist. The fact that both participants in this affair of honor had sought to escape to London by the early morning train and had converted their rencontre into a round of golf in no way diminished the antique splendour of the incident. His opinions on strategy and tactics were eagerly solicited at every Bridge party and the somewhat vague and enigmatic manner in which his oracles from the shrine of Mars were delivered only served to augment his reputation. Also, when he carried his wife’s shopping basket in the High Street, there was the slightest trace of a limp attributable, no doubt, to a war wound, although in which leg it was not quite certain.
It was this aspect of her husband’s many-faceted character that engaged Elizabeth App-Flint as she addressed her patriotically frugal breakfast of toast and home-made plum jam one morning at Grebe, their house near the marshes outside Tilling.
‘Such a pity, dear,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that the foolish War Office cannot find some use for such an experienced and illustrious soldier as yourself.’
A letter had arrived yesterday from that criminally short-sighted body, thanking the Major for his public-spirited offer to take charge of his old command but evincing a rather naïve belief that Hitler could be crushed without him. This had not completely exasperated the indomitable old soldier; his military career, although spanning some twenty-five years, had been mercifully free of any involvement in actual conflict.
‘Yes, girlie, I know,’ he said, shaking his head sadly, ‘always were damn fools in Whitehall. Couldn’t recognize a good man then, can’t recognize one now. Still, that’s that, eh?’
‘That most certainly is not that. I simply won’t have your talents going to waste at this crucial point in our nation’s history. Why, it’s as bad as burning food, or pouring petroleum into the sea. We must find some other work for you—air-raid warden perhaps, or training such able-bodied men as are still here in the town into a proper Home Guard, capable of offering resistance in the event of an invasion. Or watching for German aircraft or parachutists.’
The Major had not thought of that. Of course his duty to his country must come first, and ever since the sand-dunes on which he had been accustomed to play golf had been draped in barbed-wire and signboards warning the public not to proceed beyond this point he had had to spend more time under the eye of his dear wife than he would have chosen himself. Watching for enemy barges, however, perhaps in the company of another golf-playing patriot, would surely entitle him to access the forbidden zone; and there was that spartan but nonetheless inviting little public-house opposite the tram-stop, where an old soldier had been wont to fortify himself against the delights of domestic life. But training—attempting to train—the farm-labourers and chemists’ boys of Tilling to hurl the Hun back into the sea—that was a different kettle of fish altogether.
‘Air-raid warden?’ he said hopefully. ‘Surely a younger man?’
‘No, Benjy, such a responsible duty calls for a man of authority, a man respected in the community. Can you imagine dear Mr. Georgie, in his cape, strutting round Tilling bawling “Do put that tar’some light out!” or some such thing? Or Mr. Wyse perhaps? Or the Padre? Why, no one would understand him, for he would be sure to shout in Scotch! No, Benjy-boy, you are the only man in Tilling who would be up to the task. I wonder what is the proper authority to apply to.’
Benjy scowled at the teapot, which these days tended to supply a particularly anaemic fluid. The national emergency had enabled Elizabeth to ascend new pinnacles of frugality.
‘I suppose you’ll want me to hang about in all weathers outside Mallards, in case Lucia—I mean Mrs. Pillson—happens to break the black-out regulations. ’Pon my word, girlie, I don’t think a matter of vital importance should be entrusted to an old man already worn out in his country’s service. I would have thought Twistevant’s young lad—he’s got fat feet, you know—or one of Twemlow’s boys ....’
‘The defence of Britain is not to be left to tradesmen,’ said Elizabeth grandly, surprising herself almost as much as her husband. ‘Besides, if you don’t do it, that woman will get herself involved in it somehow. You mark my words.’
Elizabeth took a savage bite of her thin toast. The defence of Britain was under no circumstances to be left to Lucia.
Strangely enough the same national issues were engaging the mind of the Pillsons in Mallards.
‘Mark my words, Georgie, she’ll try and get that husband of hers involved in some important war-work, and that I could not allow. I feel a deep responsibility for our little town, having carried out its most onerous public duties for three consecutive years. And what would Major Benjy do to further our security? Challenge Hitler to a duel on the sand-dunes perhaps, and then run away to London by the first train? No, Georgie, I feel that it is up to us, as Tilling’s leading citizens, to shoulder yet another burden on behalf of our community. Air-raid wardens, Georgie, and collections to raise money to build Hurricanes, and digging for victory. And Grosvenor and Foljambe must go and make munitions or parachutes or something.’
The horror of this awful idea struck Georgie dumb for a moment. Never in their married life had Lucia suggested anything quite so dreadful. Do without Foljambe! What, he wondered, was the point of fighting this tar’some war if all vestiges of civilised life were to be abandoned in the process?
‘You, Georgie, you must put your name forward immediately for some responsible position. And we must have some evacuees to live here. We must not be selfish. We must give of ourselves to the utmost.’
‘I won’t do without Foljambe, and that’s flat. And I won’t have evacuees. Why, they’d steal my bibelots. And I’m sure I don’t know what I could do. Really, Lucia, you mustn’t let yourself get carried away like this.’
‘Oo vewwy naughty Georgie not to answer Country’s call in time of Emergency,’ said Lucia, lapsing into the baby-talk she so often used to deal with Georgie when he was troublesome. ‘Oo surely not leave ickle Lucia to face frightful Germans on her own?’
‘We do have an Army, Lucia, who I am quite sure are perfectly capable of dealing with Hitler without any help from us. I’ll tell you what—we can get together a concert party to entertain the troops—music and tableaux, and Irene doing impressions of Goering and Himmler. I’m sure that will achieve much more than depriving ourselves of the bare necessities of survival.’
‘We shall see, Georgie, we shall see. And now, perhaps, a quarter-of-an-hour of immortal Elgar, and then to the High Street. We must not allow the horrors of war to come between us and contemplation of the Eternal. Dear Elgar! So quintessentially what we are fighting for.’
Except that dear Elgar, although so quintessentially English, was rather more difficult than Georgie remembered, so that he played many false notes, and went forth into the High Street in a very dark frame of mind.
They met Godiva Plaistow in the queue at the butcher’s.
‘Sausages,’ said she in her telegraphic style. ‘Supposed to be pork, but presumably breadcrumbs. Haven’t seen a sausage since Paddy had that fight with a Scottie. Don’t suppose I shall recognise one when I do see it.’
‘No!’ said Lucia, her high-minded concern for strategy eclipsed by the thought of pork sausages. ‘And are there any left?’
‘Don’t know. Wyses were here at crack of dawn. Left draped in sausages on their tricycles. I wonder how they knew?’
‘You know, dear Diva, I sometimes wonder whether our dear Tilling has yet grasped the need for community spirit at this critical time. I, for my part, entirely disapprove of the virtual ostracism of our dear friends the Wyses, simply because they have connections with a hostile country. Yet I do not believe that they will help their own cause by ....’
‘By hogging all the sausages. Still, they were here first. Would have done the same myself in their shoes, I expect,’ said Diva magnanimously. She could see that the couple at the counter had quite incredibly failed to buy any sausages, so that she was now certain to get some. ‘I hope there’s some scraps for Paddy!’ she added, more hopefully than realistically.
Quaint Irene Coles, attired in a flying-jacket and blue serge trousers, braked her racing-bicycle beside the kerb and shouted, ‘What are you queuing for?’
‘Sausages, dear,’ said Lucia, ‘although I fear you might be a little bit late.’
‘Never mind,’ said Irene. ‘What’s a sausage or two between sisters-in-arms? Besides, Henry can probably get me some from the Officers’ Mess if I ask him.’
With that bombshell, more explosive than anything hurled by the long-range guns of Germany, she raced off towards the Landgate.
‘Henry!’ said Diva, thunderstruck. ‘Officers’ Mess! Fancy.’
And so deep was she in thought that she almost forgot to ask if there were any scraps, although, since there were none, this hardly mattered.
Outside the shop she met the Reverend Kenneth Bartlett, known to all Tilling as the Padre.
‘Sausages,’ she said to the Padre, ‘and Irene’s got an officer from the Harbour who can get her all the sausages she wants.’
‘No!’ said the Padre. ‘An officer of the soldiery. I ken he must be one of yon Staffordshire Regiment. A godly company o’ Christian knights I ween they are, too.’
This macaronic dialect had been a playful whimsy to start with, but, like a child who had ignored his mother’s warning, he had ‘stuck like it’, and now the accents of his Midlands birthplace manifested themselves only in times of great excitement.
‘Henry,’ said Diva, ‘and all those sausages.’
‘Wait till I tell wee wifie. And are ye no coming to take tea with us this afternoon, Mistress Plaistow? Very well then, till four-o’ clock.’
He hurried off towards the butcher’s, in time to see the last sausages disappear into Lucia’s basket.
One might have thought that Tilling was a nest of enemy spies, to judge by the number of its residents who could be seen later that day walking past the small infantry camp at Tilling Harbour, furtively regarding it and occasionally, when they thought they were not overlooked, peering at it through opera-glasses. Lucia and Georgie, with the smallest of her first husband’s telescopes concealed in a copy of the Hastings Chronicle, had suddenly been seized with a desire to take their bicycle-exercise as near to the sea as the barbed-wire allowed them. Major Benjy too was filled with a nostalgic wish to gaze upon the scene of his former golfing triumphs, his binoculars no doubt being essential to pick out the details of the long seventh hole; and the Padre, who had previously been content to leave the spiritual guidance of the troops to the uniformed cleric attached to them, had clearly heard the call of pastoral duty, for he went down to the Harbour with fifty copies of last week’s parish magazine. But there was no sign of Irene, or her bicycle, or Henry, or sausages. Had they troubled to look into the dining-room of the Traders’ Arms, they would have seen the object of their espionage having lunch with a short, balding man in the uniform of a Captain of the Staffords, discussing the latest trends in the European avant-garde (for Henry was none other than Henry Porteous, the painter) with a parcel of what might easily have been sausages on the table in front of her. As it was, all Tilling risked arrest, denunciation and the firing squad without any result.
But the incident had set off a train, a veritable Flying Scotsman, of thought in Lucia’s mind: she must have an officer too, who would come to Mallards (with or without sausages) and be inspired by the beauty of Purcell and Elgar before venturing forth, a knight wearing her favour, to do battle with the infidel. In fact, more than one officer. There must be a whole Round Table of the Knights of Mallards, the goodliest company of chivalry ever seen on the Sussex coast. When she had established her short-lived salon in London, she had been seeking selfishly to enthrone herself queen of that glittering city of shadows; so unworthy of one who had since devoted every fibre of her being to the public service. How better could she assist the nation’s war-effort than to instil in its leaders of men (or at least such of its leaders of men as were currently in Tilling Harbour) the true essence of their struggle against barbarism. Also, said the old Eve at the back of her mind, how better to put dear Elizabeth in her place than by trumping her retired Major with a couple of real live officers still on active service?
Actually getting hold of a job-lot of assorted officers was a different matter. She could not order them from Twistevant’s (‘Good morning, Twistevant, and have you got any Colonels today? Four then, please, and send them to Mrs. Pillson, Mallards’). The Army had kept itself to itself, confining its activities to the Harbour and the Sebastopol Arms. Occasionally, a uniformed male had been seen about the streets of Tilling with a camera or a sketching-book, but she could not seize such a man by the elbow and drag him off to the garden-room to listen to madrigals, arranged for four hands on the pianoforte. Presumably they were under orders to keep their distance from the townsfolk on account of some military secrets that they might disclose in an unguarded moment.
Baffled but by no means despondent, Lucia returned to Mallards with her day’s trophy of two lamb-chops. On her way, she passed Elizabeth and Major Benjy in deep conversation with the Padre and his wife Evie. The Major was apparently confiding to his enraptured audience that a counter-attack, via the Faroes and Iceland, was so inevitable as to be a foregone conclusion, and the only question over which Whitehall was still agonising was whether to establish the final bridgehead at Oslo or Copenhagen. Smiling in such a way that she could grind her teeth at the same time, Lucia turned up West Street and propelled her bicycle up the cobbled slope.
‘Georgino—I mean Georgie,’ said she, as soon as she had reached home. ‘I have an idea.’
Georgie raised his eyes from a snuff-box he had been engaged in polishing. His poor bibelots had gathered dust in the last few days, for his soul was full of horrors. Foljambe had declared that, since her husband Cadman was away at the wars (he was slightly too old for military service, and had gone to work at the Transport Headquarters at Hove, where he spent most of his time polishing the motors of Generals and Cabinet Ministers, and in sundry other ways devising the downfall of Hitler), she ought to be doing her bit by making bombs at the Ordnance Factory. As a result, he had neglected his bibelots, left a chair-cover, on which he had been embroidering Britannia ruling the Rother Estuary, abandoned half-finished in a cupboard, and lain awake two nights in a row tormented by nameless fears.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what is it?’
‘Officers, Georgie, from the Harbour. Think of them, pacing up and down their dusty barrack-rooms in the evenings, dwelling on the perils of war, the dangers that lie before them. Allowing their morale to sink into the depths.’
Georgie shook his head. ‘I thought they had a nice little Officers’ Club in the old Customs House where they can play billiards and ...’
‘Billiards, Georgie! What sort of occupation is that for a man who is about to confront the horror of the battlefield? What they need is somewhere where they can refresh their souls with music and poetry and intelligent conversation, to inspire them to go out and fight for the values of civilisation and democracy, where they can get a final taste of what England really means.’
‘You mean the Institute?’ asked Georgie, puzzled.
‘No, no, Georgie. Why, don’t you see? A salon. Here. At Mallards.’
‘Lucia! You can’t!’
‘Why not, pray?’
‘But really! They’ll drink whisky, and laugh at my embroidery.’
‘No, dearest, you are mistaken. Not all soldiers are like poor Major Benjy, boozing and making up vulgar stories about the Pride of Poonah. Imagine, Georgie, if you were an officer stranded in an unknown town, how your heart would yearn for the company of kindred souls, the refreshment of the mind. Oo not be unkind to poor officers, Georgie, make them play billiards all evening.’
‘I believe you only want them about the place to score off Elizabeth and Major Benjy. And I’m sure they won’t want to listen to us playing duets or watch us doing tableaux when they could be drinking beer in the Sebastopol Arms.’
Even as Georgie said this, a light had dawned in his brain, a light as brilliant as the first rays of the morning sun. If they were to entertain officers at Mallards, surely they would have need of at least one permanent member of staff, to wit Foljambe. Even that conscientious person would have to admit that ministering to Lucia’s officers was as much war-work as making bombs at the Ordnance Factory. Foljambe, in other words, would go to sleep in her own little room again.
‘And anyway,’ he said cautiously, ‘how do you plan to get hold of all these officers? They don’t come into the town very much.’
He knew, of course, that Lucia would manage it somehow, through some stroke of luck or Machiavellian effort. Had she not, in the space of a few months in London, filled her house in Brompton Square with duchesses, politicians and flute-playing prizefighters?
‘Me must fink,’ said she. ‘But you agree in principle, don’t you? Of course, there will be no question of Foljambe leaving if we do start entertaining in this way. Why, it would be almost like war-work!’
Every man has his price, thought Georgie, and the value of a parlour maid-cum-valet like Foljambe was far above rubies. Nonetheless, it would not do to be over-enthusiastic. Lucia must not be over-encouraged in her personal war against Germany; really, she was being even more insufferable now than she had been in the first few weeks of her Mayoralty.
‘Oh, very well then. But you must catch the officers, and you must entertain them.’
‘Thank you, dear, a thousand times. So noble of you. Now we must put our heads together and make our plans. How splendid it is to be doing something at last!’
Elizabeth, meanwhile, unaware that her military monopoly was so gravely endangered, was sitting in the drawing-room of Grebe. She had found an old pair of velvet curtains which, with a little imagination and a great deal of application, could be turned into an evening-dress. It would, of course, be very heavy and cumbersome, but the thought of appearing in a new costume of red velvet reconciled her to any degree of physical discomfort. Poor Diva had been forced back on chintz roses again, regardless of the disasters that had attended their first appearance, and little Evie Bartlett was now not only a mouse, but a church-mouse as well. Let Lucia attempt to steal this advantage from her if she dared—very fine she would look in an evening-gown of figured damask .... But the heavy material was hard to cut and her fingers were becoming quite sore where the scissors bit into them; and the lines were not really straight, even when the pile of the velvet was taken into account ....
She turned her mind to the matter of Irene and the enigmatic Henry. Who was he? An officer evidently, and therefore one of the Staffords from the Harbour. But did this mean that Irene had at last fallen victim to the little gentleman with swan’s wings and such cruel arrows, whose marksmanship had (albeit in a rather restrained manner) accounted for Susan Wyse, Emmeline Lucas and herself? Could Irene, she of the moleskin trousers and short clay pipe, have fallen in love? Such an event would indeed be outstanding in the chronicles of Tilling. And would love, that softener of the hearts of tyrants, disarm the tongue of Tilling’s most dreaded mimic, in terror of whom Elizabeth had lived for so many years? She was still young enough, and admittedly still attractive enough, if one disregarded the fishermen’s jerseys; war is a great foster-nurse of love, even between the most unsuitable of people.
‘Benjy,’ she said as he entered the room, ‘it’s no use, I shan’t get a moment’s rest until I am certain that dear quaint Irene isn’t exposing herself to the most terrible danger.’
‘Riding that bicycle of hers so fast down Porpoise Street?’ hazarded the perplexed Major.
‘No, no, I mean allowing herself to fall into the clutches of an unscrupulous man. You know what you wicked soldiers are like for breaking poor female hearts.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that, Liz, old girl. But there’s something I must tell you. There’s been a spy arrested in Hastings.’
‘No!’ screamed Elizabeth, wide-eyed. ‘In Hastings! Benjy, is this true?’
‘I heard it from the Padre,’ said he, simply. ‘Apparently he heard it from Twistevant, whose cousin’s brother-in-law keeps the Seven Stars in Hastings. Anyway, some fella with a funny accent came knocking on the door of the Plough and Harrow, which is just down the road from the Seven Stars, at seven-o’ clock yesterday morning, asking for a bottle of Franklin’s Ale. Now, not only is it funny that a chap should think he could get a drink at seven in the morning in England, but old Franklin sold up two years ago. So the landlady said she was just going down to the cellar to fetch his bottle of ale, and went and telephoned the police. They took him away in an armoured car. Well, what do you think of that, girlie?’
‘Benjy, how terrible. German spies just along the coast—why, we shall all be murdered in our beds. What shall we do?’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘I’m going to dig out my old service revolver. If anyone comes asking for beer at the King’s Arms at the crack of dawn, they’ll get the shock of their lives!’
And with this ferocious speech the old soldier went and rummaged about in his desk. Instead of his service revolver, however, he found a flask of whisky, the existence of which he had quite forgotten, and he paused for a moment to stiffen his resolve before arming himself to await the onrush of the hordes of thirsty barbarians.
News of the spy in Hastings spread through Tilling like wildfire and its inhabitants, who had never been reluctant to observe their fellow-creatures from windows, street-corners or the doorways of shops, redoubled their efforts in the interests of national security. A German agent, entering Tilling from the sea coast, would have had to pass first the sentry-post of Grebe; supposing he managed to get past the untiring eyes of Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, and had gained the Church Square without being discovered, he would have to find some way of bypassing the Vicarage and the searching gaze of wee wifie. Even if he was successful thus far, he must then evade the garden-room of Mallards, towering like a hilltop fortress above the narrow street, before passing on to the High Street and certain detection by the ladies of Tilling queuing inside Twistevant’s, or the vantage-point of the front window of Diva’s house, Wasters. Had he as many shapes as Proteus or the ability, like Oberon, to make himself invisible at will, he could never pass by so many eyes without the need of strong refreshment. In order to obtain it he would have to encounter the scrutiny of Major Benjy, who had taken up a regular post at the bar of the King’s Arms; the next German to make the slightest slip in the ordering of alcoholic refreshment would undoubtedly go the way of his predecessor. For his part, the Major had thrown himself heart and soul into this form of war-work, for which he was undeniably well suited. The only doubt left in his mind was whether he would be able to claim reimbursement from the War Office for the occasional whisky-and-soda he was forced to consume from time to time in order to maintain his disguise.
While on sentry-go in the garden-room one morning, Lucia was allowing her fingers to stray over the keys of her piano when an idea dawned in her mind.
‘Georgie,’ she said (for he was there also), ‘an idea!’
‘Officers?’ said Georgie gloomily. He had heard many ideas about officers lately.
‘No, dearest, just a thought. How shall I put it? You remember how, before Italy removed itself from the circle of civilised nations ....’
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘go on.’ He, like Lucia, missed the easy Italian phrases they had been accustomed to slip into their conversation. They had experimented briefly with a number of alternatives of varying difficulty and elegance. French was barred to them, for had not dear Elizabeth once used it to parody Lucia’s Italian? Classical Greek had had a short vogue (‘Diva dear, what a kalon himation! And now I must just pop epi Twemlow’s and see if they’ve got any allanta for our ariston’), but had been abandoned since it rendered their talk completely unintelligible not only to everyone else in Tilling but frequently to each other as well.
‘What better decoration for our speech than the language of our dear Polish allies? Such a mellifluous tongue, Georgie, and so much a mark of respect to our intrepid comrades-in-arms.’
‘But I don’t know any Polish,’ replied Georgie, ‘and Elizabeth would be sure to tell everyone it was Russian, and I can’t remember if they’re on our side or not.’
‘Nonsense, Georgie. I shall send for a Polish phrase-book at once.’
At this moment Grosvenor entered with the post. There was but the one letter, addressed to Mrs. Pillson. Lucia opened it and presently she almost screamed with pleasure.
‘Lucia, what is it?’ said Georgie.
‘It’s from Tony Limpsfield—you remember, I made his acquaintance in London. Listen!’
My Dear Lucia,
As you may have heard, I have been able to secure a commission in the South Staffordshire Regiment, which is stationed in your divine Tilling. My dear, how marvellously fortunate! To be able to spend a few hours of civilised relaxation, listening to the Moonlight Sonata or wonderful Mozart, before going out on to the battlefields of Europe. Do say that I can call on you while I am in Tilling, and perhaps bring a few fellow-souls with me.
Your devoted
Lord Tony
‘No!’ said Georgie, profoundly moved. Although he and Lord Limpsfield had not been introduced when the latter had stayed with Lucia in Riseholme while she still lived there, that turbulent weekend when all Riseholme had turned against Lucia, he knew him by sight, and of course he was a friend of his adored Olga Bracely.
‘Officers, Georgie! Officers from heaven!’ said Lucia, almost incoherent with joy. ‘At last we shall be able to do something beyond depriving ourselves of butter and sending our saucepans to be melted down!’
‘And what price Major Benjy now?’ said her husband. ‘Why, all he’ll be doing is boozing and watching for spies in the King’s Arms.’
They were both silent for a moment.
‘Can he really mean Beethoven and Mozart?’ said Georgie. ‘And to think we’ve been doing without them all this time, and having to make do with beastly Elgar and madrigals. Why, it’s worse than having to make do with powdered eggs instead of real ones!’
‘And to think that I believed that those wretched weeks I spent in London were all wasted when in fact they were simply laying the foundations of this vital work that lies before us. It was Destiny, Georgie, Destiny. I feel that my actions in the past have been guided by a greater providence. We must practise as never before, for we shall be playing—how does dear Vergil put it?—not for light or trivial rewards but for the life-blood of our country.’
So it was that Elizabeth and the Major, passing under the garden-room as they walked into Tilling, heard German music being played there once again.
‘Ah,’ said Major Benjy, ‘there’s Mrs. Pillson playing Elgar, no doubt. A great improvement on all that frightful German twaddle she used to make us listen to, eh, girlie?’
‘No, Benjy-boy, that is the frightful German twaddle she used to make us listen to. Sometimes I wonder if dear Lucia’s patriotic displays—so forceful, don’t you think?—may mask some slight sympathies towards the enemy. Of course, I would never suggest that she was an active sympathiser ....’
Major Benjy’s jaw set in an implacable line. If he ever caught Lucia trying to buy bottled beer at the King’s Arms at seven-o’clock in the morning, he would shoot first and ask questions afterwards.
Captain Anthony, Lord Limpsfield, called at Mallards the next morning. Elizabeth, as it happened, was passing at the time, and she saw the dark-green military car nosing its way along the narrow street and stopping outside Mallards, and the uniformed man step out and ring the bell. Her heart leapt up with involuntary optimism as she recalled how the soldiers had called to take away the Hastings spy in an armoured car, but when the door opened and she heard the rapturous greetings and Dear-Lord-Tonyings that followed, her heart was at once sent plummeting into the pit of her stomach. Who was this terrible officer, calling on dear Lulu and being greeted as an old and intimate friend? Better, she thought, to have German Panzers in Porpoise Street than British Humbers outside Mallards ....
‘My dear,’ said Tony Limpsfield, ‘who was that large woman who passed by just now? Such a smile, my dear. I thought she was going to swallow me whole.’
‘Poor Elizabeth!’ said Lucia. ‘One of my dearest friends in our little Tilling—Mayoress three times—but such a jealous nature. She cannot bear that anyone else should do anything to help the war-effort. But such a character, and married to the most comical old Major. You shall meet them both, I promise you; they are quite as ludicrous as Queen Charlotte’s mittens that you saw in that dear little Museum in sweet Riseholme. And now, perhaps, a little musica, and then you must tell me all about what you are doing and how the war is going. But, wicked Lord Tony, to encourage me to play Beethoven and Mozart, for are they not German composers? Surely we should be listening to Elgar and sweet Delius?’
‘Delius was a German, come to that,’ said Tony Limpsfield, ‘so you can’t have him. I don’t care a fig if you play Wagner, so long as I hear something other than “Rule Britannia” and “Land of hope and glory”, or American jazz, which is all I’ve heard in the last month.’
‘Poor Lord Tony! How wretched is the soldier’s lot. Very well then, no more talk, but some delicious Mozart.’
Lord Tony immediately assumed the listening-to-music face that had been the badge of the secret society of the Luciaphils during those heady days in London, while Lucia flexed her fingers and began to play ....
On his return to the camp in the Harbour, he ran into his fellow-officer Henry Porteous, who was engaged in making a highly stylised sketch of a three-ton lorry.
‘I met your lady love in town today,’ he said.
‘If you are referring to Miss Coles,’ said Porteous, ‘she’s nothing of the sort. We admire each other’s work, that’s all. Her picture last year—Bellona in arms on the South Coast—a marvellously sardonic treatment of British jingoism. That brilliant face she put on it—everything that’s wrong with this country today. That stupid, complacent smirk! What an artist!’
‘From what I gather,’ said Lord Limpsfield, ‘it wasn’t meant to be ironic at all. That brilliant face was based on my friend Mrs. Pillson. Apparently quaint Irene—I mean Miss Coles—regards her as an embodiment of all that’s splendid in the British character in wartime. Serene but dogged resistance.’
‘But she looks so damned smug!’
‘I know. She’s that too! Listen! You must come and meet her, she’s colossal. I made her acquaintance in London before the war. She lived in a little village called Riseholme in Worcestershire and she was trying to break into London society. She didn’t so much climb as rise effortlessly, like one of those mediums who practise levitation. And such a snob! She went after duchesses like a gundog!’
‘She sounds quite frightful.’
‘Oh she is—but she’s magnificent and I adore her, and I want her to have as many officers in Tilling as she had duchesses in London, if not more. And your Miss Coles adores her too. Lucia introduced her to me in the High Street, like a queen scattering largesse to the mob!’
‘Oh very well then, since she’s the original of Miss Coles’s Bellona,’ said Henry Porteous, scowling. ‘But I won’t take her any sausages, or eggs, or parachute silk, which is all that women seem to be interested in these days.’
Meanwhile Lucia was practising the Moonlight Sonata, deep in thought. She must not repeat the mistake she had made when she had entertained Lord Tony in Riseholme. She had invited all her London friends there one weekend and, foolish woman that she was, had kept them to herself, taking them to laugh at the new Museum and not introducing them to any of her subjects, even Georgie. As a result Riseholme had rebelled against her, and she had been hard put to it to regain her crown. This time she would allow Tilling to meet her officers, although she would have to ration them, as everything is rationed in wartime. An occasional lunch or Bridge party, at which an honoured Tillingite would be permitted to be present. On no account should Elizabeth be allowed to annex any of her officers. On that point she was adamant.
With these elements of strategy firm in her mind, she closed the lid of the piano and looked out of the window in case any German spy, entranced by the music of his countrymen, should be standing beneath. Having satisfied herself that her lure had attracted nothing, she took her bicycle and cycled down to the High Street to order a Polish phrase-book.
She had not gone far when she saw something that caused her to skid violently and almost collide with a lamp-post. There, outside Irene’s house Taormina, was the quaint one being kissed by a short, balding man in uniform. Covered in confusion she righted her machine and pedalled furiously into the High Street.
She had not been the only witness of this most unTilling-like event. Diva, walking her dog up towards Church Square, observed it also and immediately turned round and walked briskly back towards the High Street, almost colliding with Elizabeth in her anxiety to escape from the remarkable display of emotion.
‘Irene,’ said Diva breathlessly. ‘Soldier. Kissing outside Taormina.’
‘No!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Saw them myself just now,’ replied Diva. ‘Probably still at it.’
‘Fancy! What was he like?’
‘Short, balding, spectacles. It must be Henry.’
‘I was saying to Major Benjy just the other day how morality is remarkably lax in wartime,’ said Elizabeth proudly. ‘And now this! The poor child. She must be protected against herself.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ said Diva crossly. ‘I just hope it was Henry, that’s all. If there are two of them after her, they might go and fight duels over her in the sand-dunes. You know how military men tend to fight duels over women.’
Elizabeth decided to ignore the deadly irony of this remark.
‘Hardly likely, dear. Even if he did have a rival, I doubt whether they’d be able to have a duel in the sand-dunes. Mines. Patrols. Military police. Someone would be sure to stop them.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Diva, more red in the face than ever, ‘you’re not to go interfering. Besides, love might be good for Irene. Stop her wearing fishermen’s jerseys and riding her bicycle too fast. And I don’t see how you could stop it, unless you walked up and down outside Taormina ringing a dinner-bell.’
With this brilliant allusion, Diva scuttled off to impart the news to the Padre and wee wifie, who were queuing outside the fishmonger’s in the pretty belief that he might sell them some fish.