Lucia’s first officers’ dinner was an outstanding success, for Lucia if not for the officers. There was lobster à la Riseholme (albeit with rather more Riseholme than lobster) and raspberry fool (rather more fool than raspberry) and a quantity of sound port. This was followed by Beethoven and Mozartino, Elgar and Purcell, by readings from Shakespeare (Henry V to the troops at Harfleur—Lucia was Henry V) and Pope’s Iliad (Hector’s farewell to Andromache—Lucia was Hector). As the two Humbers rattled away down the hill in the rain (one of them pausing outside Taormina to release quaint Irene) Lucia waved them goodbye from the blacked-out window of the garden-room and then retired to bed, gloriously happy. Four officers, including a peer of the realm and a notorious avant-garde painter, and Irene as a witness that it had actually happened.
Irene was not slow in performing her rôle as messenger, for by marketing time in the High Street next morning Elizabeth had heard all about it from Evie Bartlett.
‘There were two Humbers,’ said the mouselike one, ‘Lord Limpsfield and Captain Porteous in one and Captain Oldshaw and Lieutenant Custard in the other. They arrived at six and they didn’t leave until after twelve. Fancy that!’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘I wonder what they can have been doing all that time?’ she said cheerfully. ‘Ah! Of course. I see it all. Dear quaint Irene has been misleading us, for clearly it was not Lord Limpsfield and Mr. Porteous the painter—such daubs, dear Evie, no form at all—at Mallards last night, but Mr. Churchill, the First Sea Lord and the head of the Air Force, all come to seek our dear Lulu’s advice. After all, if you recall, in peacetime all the leading lights of the Stock Exchange, and no doubt the Treasury as well, were accustomed to hang on her every word’ (Lucia had been known to say occasionally that Mammoncash, her broker, had come round to her way of thinking) ‘even though those shares she recommended me to put all my money into did so very badly. Well now, we must hope she gave the Government rather better advice than she gave me.’
Evie waited patiently until this bitter, although confused, tirade had subsided.
‘I don’t think so, Elizabeth dear, or there would have been more than two cars, and I don’t think dear Irene would have been asked. I would have thought Mr. Churchill was capable of conducting the war without her help, even if he can’t do without Lucia’s.’
Despite the shock of apparently being savaged by a mouse, Elizabeth found a gleam of comfort in this reply. Was Evie just the slightest bit resentful that Lucia had invited quaint Irene Coles to the inaugural officer-feast, rather than one of the more senior members of Tilling society?
‘I expect he wanted to meet our brilliant young painter. Perhaps,’ she said, echoing the hopes of her own unconscious mind, ‘he intends to send her abroad as an official war artist.’
Poor Elizabeth! Lucia might well have been taking lessons in strategy from the Chiefs of Staff, for she had forestalled all disaffection by brilliant generalship. Evie, on her return to the Vicarage, found an invitation waiting for her; dinner, for the Padre and herself to meet the officers at Mallards the day after tomorrow. Clearly Tilling would get its ration of officers, although as with all rationing there must be some standing in line and waiting of turns first. And so it proved, for, with the exception of Irene, who was invited every time that Henry came, thus securing his presence, each and every Tillingite of note received their invitation in turn, even including the Wyses; all, that is, except the Mapp-Flints. For word of Elizabeth’s fury had reached Lucia’s ears, and she had concluded that if Elizabeth expected to meet Mr. Churchill at Mallards she would be sadly disappointed, and had better not come at all.
So Elizabeth was thrown back upon two miserable alternatives. Either she must sue for peace, and upon wretched terms, or else she must make up her mind to ignore Lucia and her officers and her magnificent gesture towards the war-effort (for, in order to feed so many officers so well and so often, she and Georgie must, between dinners, be living on fresh air and rainwater) and pretend that neither she nor the Staffordshire Regiment nor indeed the whole British Army existed. This would be well-nigh impossible to do, for all Tilling now lived and breathed officers; the latest despatches from the Mallards front were awaited with breathless excitement in the High Street next morning—how Lucia had addressed Lord Limpsfield as ‘Lord Tony’; how Irene and Henry Porteous always sat next to each other and exchanged furtive glances which, to the innocent ladies of Tilling, looked remarkably like smouldering passion; how the tall, lean officer from Yorkshire, Captain Oldshaw, had admitted in strict confidence that he had been across the Channel in a small boat to inspect the German barges, and how he thought that they were mostly like to sink before they got half-way. To ignore all this was to ignore life itself. She had nothing left with which to fight back; Major Benjy might specify the exact fjord in Iceland where he thought the counterattack most likely to land and no one would pay the slightest attention. She must find something or else submit utterly.
Her mind was filled with these horrible imaginings as she walked briskly up through the Landgate and up the High Street one morning in search of eggs, although for all the luck she was having she might as well have been looking for phoenix eggs, which the Arabian fowl lays only once every thousand years. She would have, she realised, to go and virtually prostrate herself at the feet of the odious Mr. Rice whom, in happier times, she had so often broadsided with the full batteries of her eloquence, and this wretched thought so filled her mind like mist that she utterly failed to notice Lucia, hurrying along towards her with her eyes downcast as if wishing for once to avoid attention. Of course, even if Elizabeth had seen Lucia, she would have failed to notice her (Lucia and her officers and her merry little dinners did not, needless to say, exist), but she would not have collided with her quite so sharply, knocking the basket from her hand. Filled with furious remorse she stooped to pick up the contents of the basket, but Lucia stooped more quickly than she and began to hurl provisions back into their container without bothering to replace their newspaper wrappings. She was also trying to screen these provisions from Elizabeth’s sight, and in this she was imperfectly successful.
‘So sorry, dear, let me help you,’ cried Elizabeth, frantically scanning Lucia’s upset hoard. There was sugar and eggs, one of which was broken, its golden essence seeping away between the cobbles, a whole leg of lamb, from a lamb the size of a horse, and—ye gods!—four oranges!
‘Not at all, not at all,’ replied Lucia, and there was mortal fear in her eyes. ‘Nothing broken.’
‘Such lovely things, Lulu dear. Leg of lamb, surely?’ purred Elizabeth.
‘So fortunate. A food-parcel from dear Lord Whitby in America. All these treasures!’ And the petrified woman almost ran down the High Street and up towards Mallards. Elizabeth stepped back and felt something against her heel. There, evidence of Lucia’s undoubted crime, was an orange.
She thought quickly. Would it be better to hold it above her head and call out in a voice that all Tilling would be able to hear, ‘Lucia dearest, you’ve dropped one of your oranges!,’ or should she bear that unimaginable prize back to Grebe to use as the main exhibit in Lucia’s trial, as it were, when she came to broadcast this episode, complete with Lucia’s ludicrous story about food-parcels, to the entire town? Strategy and the thought of the dramatic effect that could be obtained from skilful use of that orange caused her to slip the treasure into her pocket and continue on her way, murmuring as she went a prayer of thanksgiving to the God that she had believed only that same morning had utterly forsaken her.
Lucia, her heart pounding, finally managed to regain the safety of Mallards; she closed the stout front-door and, to make sure, put on the chain. What could have possessed her, she thought, to return from the interview with the seedy little man at the railway-station with all her eggs (and sugar and lamb and oranges) in one eminently insecure basket? She had been simply inviting this disaster, and that foolish, foolish lie about Lord Whitby in America and food-parcels had surely sealed her doom for ever. Had she merely dropped the basket and run, she might conceivably have come up with some convincing explanation; now she was as good as convicted of black-market trafficking. And that it should be Elizabeth Mapp-Flint—Liblib of all people—who had discovered her! The Padre or Diva or the Wyses might have had mercy on her, for had they not eaten her salt (most of it from the same source) and dined with her officers; in aid of whom she had steeped herself in sin in the first place? But, of all Tilling, Elizabeth alone had not partaken of these illegally provisioned banquets, and she alone was under no obligation to keep silent. Perhaps, just conceivably, it might all be put down to the forgeries of jealousy; it all depended. Perhaps her guests had already reached the conclusion that all the culinary glory laid before them had not been earmarked by King George for Lucia’s use, and had decided to turn a blind eye. Perhaps not ....
She hurled the evidence of her guilt into the secret cupboard in the garden-room where, so Tilling folklore related, Elizabeth, at that time the proud owner of Mallards, had once hoarded food during a coal-strike while condemning hoarding to others as a particularly nasty form of treason. To think that she, three times Mayor of Tilling, could have sunk as low as dear Liblib!
Already the secret cupboard contained riches beyond the dreams of wartime avarice, gleaned from the gratitude of the Staffordshire Regiment or her own unlawful enterprise. Besides tea and sausages, there were eggs and jars of honey and bags of sultanas; three bottles of whisky, seven tins of peaches, nine tins of salmon. There was bacon, butter, lard (in incredible quantities), nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. To this she added the leg of lamb, the eggs, the sugar and the three oranges ....
Three oranges! Numb with fear she stared at them, and in her imagination they replied with wide, Elizabeth-like grins of mocking triumph. One of these detestable objects must be still there in the High Street, or else in the possession of that awful woman. Suddenly she remembered the sight of an orange-coloured thing glimpsed out of the corner of her eye as she stooped down, rolling away behind Elizabeth’s foot. It seemed inevitable now that Elizabeth had that orange.
She dashed out of the garden-room and into the house. Georgie was sitting in the drawing-room, working on his chair-cover (Britannia had turned out splendidly, but the Rother Estuary resembled nothing so much as a sleeping python).
‘Georgie,’ she cried, ‘the most appalling thing has happened. As I was returning from the station that woman crashed into me—she must have done it on purpose—and spilt everything in the basket all over the ground. And I think she’s got one of the oranges.’
‘No!’ said Georgie, the chair-cover falling forgotten from his hand.
‘We’ve been found out, Georgie. Everyone in Tilling will know by now. Oh! How could I have been so foolish? And to make it worse, I told her it was a food-parcel from Lord Whitby in America. I can’t imagine what made me say that, but it was the first thing that came into my head.’
‘We must think,’ said Georgie, pulling himself together with an effort. ‘Are you sure she’s got it?
‘I can see it now, rolling behind her foot. It would be a miracle if she hasn’t got it.’
‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ said Georgie. ‘You must invite her to the next dinner and let her meet all the officers. That’s if she hasn’t told everyone already.’
‘That’s true,’ said Lucia. ‘Perhaps she’ll wait for the best opportunity. I’ll write the invitation at once; she might possibly be bought off that way. Georgie, you must go down to the High Street and find out if she’s told anyone yet.’
‘How will I know?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,’ said Lucia gloomily. ‘lf she has, no one will speak to you. Ever again.’
With this miserable prospect before him Georgie set off for the High Street. To his unutterable relief he found that he was still counted as a member of the human race; Diva angled for an invitation, Susan Wyse admired the new hat which he had obtained only recently and which he had been saving for a great event—but in the panic of the moment he had seized the first hat that came to hand .... Clearly Elizabeth had held her peace for the moment. He collected the Polish phrase-book which had just arrived and returned home. He told Lucia that they were safe for the moment, and was sent forth again to walk out to Grebe and deliver the invitation that Lucia so profoundly hoped would serve as Danegeld.
Brennus the Gaul, receiving ransom from the Romans for their city, weighed down the scale with his sword and, laughing, cried, ‘Woe to the vanquished!’ Even so did Elizabeth laugh, and would undoubtedly have made the same exclamation (had she thought of it) as she opened the envelope and extracted one of the distinctive invitation cards that these days had the power of Royal Commands in Tilling. Why else, after all, had she spared Lucia so far? Only a stay of execution, not a reprieve, for the orange would keep for quite some time if stored in a cool, shady place, and could finally be used when she had made her bid to subvert Lucia’s officers and transfer them to Grebe. She was not quite sure how to do this, but she felt absolutely confident that justice would prevail ....
Of course. How foolish of her not to have thought of it before. How on earth could those dear soldiers, engaged as they were in a desperate struggle with a merciless enemy, consent to continue to break bread with a woman who, by engaging in such contemptible conduct, was virtually stabbing them in the back? They would spurn her as if she were a leper, and turn their Humbers towards Grebe.
‘Dear Lulu’s invited us to go and meet her officers,’ said she to Major Benjy. ‘How sweet of her! And I can tell you exactly what we’ll have to eat. Leg of lamb, Benjy-boy, and I dare say orange soufflé to follow.’
‘That’ll be nice, Liz,’ said he. ‘But how can you tell?’
‘Because I bumped into her in the street this morning and she upset her basket. And what do you think was in it? Three guesses? Very well, I shall tell you. Leg of lamb and four oranges. And now you must tell me where she got them from. Now, she told me that it was a food-parcel from dear Lord Whitby in America, but why, pray, should she unwrap the parcel and carry all those eggs and oranges down the High Street? To show them the fine Georgian houses, no doubt, and point out other features of antiquarian interest. Food-parcel fiddlesticks! Black market, Benjy.’
And with this alliterative outburst she sat down with the air of one who has realised some long-held ambition.
‘’Pon my soul!’ exclaimed the Major. ‘Mrs. Pillson fooling about on the black market. I wouldn’t have believed it of her. Mayor three times and all that. Most out of character.’
‘Nonsense, Benjy, it’s just the sort of thing she’d do. How else do you suppose she’s been feeding bevies of officers and making herself so conspicuous, without resorting to the black market? I say it is entirely in character—snatching food from the lips of starving orphans in order to impress the likes of Diva Plaistow and Susan Wyse! Quite contemptible, but entirely in character.’
‘I don’t think we should accept her damn’ invitation in that case,’ said the Major. ‘Eating black-market food is almost as bad as buying it.’ He paused and reflected for a moment. ‘Mind you, leg of lamb. Can’t remember when I last saw such a thing in this house.’
There was some point in this, for even in peacetime leg of lamb had been a rare visitor to Grebe. Other slightly less prized parts of the animal had been more usual.
‘Spoiling the Egyptian, Benjy,’ replied Elizabeth, who would eat human flesh in return for a chance to humiliate Lucia, let alone black-market lamb. ‘Of course, Tilling must know about this disgrace sooner or later, but I can see no reason why you and I should not enjoy ourselves at dear Lulu’s expense and meet “her” officers, as it pleases her to call them—clearly His Majesty had better take care, or all his troops will transfer their allegiance to Mrs. Pillson. And I’m sure those dear soldiers will be interested to know where their sumptuous meals are coming from.’
‘I say, Liz, that’s a thought. They won’t go back there in a hurry.’
‘Indeed, Benjy-boy; and then we might do some entertaining of our own—for the good of morale, of course. Meanwhile I’ve written to the A.R.P., and they say they’ll send an invitation to interview in a few days.’
Major Benjy froze with horror at this casual disclosure. Such awful treachery on the part of the wife of his bosom was as unexpected as it was fearful.
‘I’m not so sure about that, Liz old girl,’ he managed to say. ‘The old wound’s been playing up a lot over the last few weeks—difficult to get from one end of the room to the other some days.’ (There was some truth in this, although the cause lay not with a jezail bullet buried in the Major’s flesh, but with a hip-flask buried in his desk.) ‘Wouldn’t do to entrust such vital work to an old wreck of a retired soldier already well-nigh crippled by his nation’s enemies.’
‘Nonsense, Benjy,’ replied Elizabeth, ‘you’re just trying to wriggle out of your responsibilities to Tilling and to Britain in her hour of need. I shall have to find a white feather and send it to you anonymously, you dear shirker.’
‘Steady on, old girl,’ said the Major. ‘That’ s putting it a bit strongly, isn’t it? If you feel like that I shall certainly allow my name to be considered. It’s just that—well—when you’re as anxious to do your bit as I am it hurts the old pride a bit if you’re turned down, you know, on account of age, or injury.’
‘But they won’t turn you down, Benjy.’
‘Well, you know, they might,’ sighed the Major. He was more than afraid of refusal, he was sure of it, even if he had to feign a cardiac arrest during the actual interview. ‘Still, even if the A.R.P. don’t want me, I might find something else. Anyway, thank you for applying for me, Liz. Didn’t quite have the nerve myself.’
‘It was nothing, dear, nothing at all,’ said Elizabeth, rather puzzled at this collapse of resistance. Her dear Benjy-boy, as she had occasionally observed in the past, was never more dangerous than when appearing to be obedient.
Meanwhile, the criminal gang were sitting in gloomy silence in the beautiful panelled front-room of Mallards, where, so legend had it, an early member of the house of Hanover had taken tea after his cavalry escort had lost their way en route from Hastings to London. But what use were the notable services rendered to the nation by their predecessors in the house, if they themselves brought shame on it with their own miserable crimes?
‘There’s no guarantee that she won’t try and poach our officers and then produce the orange,’ moaned Lucia. ‘That would be so like Elizabeth.’
‘Surely by then it would be all mildewed and horrible,’ replied Georgie, ‘or perhaps Major Benjy might eat it when she isn’t looking.’
‘It’s no good, Georgie. I appreciate your trying to raise my spirits but I fear that all is lost. I have no alternative now but to confess the whole business to Lord Tony and see how he reacts.’
‘No!’ said Georgie, thrilled by her courage. ‘My dear, how brave of you. But surely it could ruin everything. And perhaps Lord Tony might never find out otherwise.’
‘With Elizabeth and Major Benjy coming this evening? Do you think she could resist such an opportunity to make mischief? No, I was wrong to invite her in the first place. Better that Lord Tony hears it from my lips, directly, than from Elizabeth’s. If he’s terribly offended, I shall cancel all further dinner parties and have influenza for a month, and you will have to go and stay with Hermy and Ursy until it’s safe to come back.’
‘I think I’d rather stay here and be ostracised than spend a month with my sisters, if you don’t mind. Oh look, there’s a Humber coming out of Church Square. It’s Lord Tony, and he’s getting out. He’s coming here. Do you think he can have heard already, from Irene or someone, and has come to say he’s not coming—oh, you know what I mean,’ he concluded crossly.
There was a knock at the door, and presently Lord Tony, attired as ever in spotless khaki, was shown in by Foljambe. He had a parcel in his hands, wrapped in brown paper.
‘My dear,’ he said to the trembling pair before him, ‘I’ve just popped in to give you these. Four tins of salmon, Canadian I’m afraid, but fresh salmon is terribly tricky, isn’t it? I couldn’t get any through the N.A.A.F.I., so I had to consult a most unpatriotic little man who lives near the railway-station.’ He paused and consulted Lucia’s expression, which was rather strange. ‘My dear, you aren’t horrified, are you? I hope I haven’t offended your principles by offering you black-market fish.’
Lucia’s first reaction was to say, No, of course not, there’s nine more from the same source in the garden-room cupboard, but she restrained herself and smiled.
‘Dear Lord Tony,’ she purred, ‘do you suppose a poor civilian like myself could provide a square meal for four hungry soldiers from the Government ration? Very well then, let us not mention the horrid subject again.’
‘Well said!’ exclaimed Lord Limpsfield. ‘Some people are so stuffy and silly. But I always say that all’s fair in love and war, and there’s a war on, and I love salmon mousse, so that’s fair enough. Au reservoir!’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Lucia as the Humber bumped away over the cobbles.
‘There’s still Elizabeth,’ replied Georgie. ‘Even if she doesn’t frighten off the officers, she can make us horribly unpopular in the town. I don’t believe that Tilling will be so broad-minded, even if they know that Lord Tony thinks it’s all right.’
‘We shall have to wait and see, I suppose. After all, it’s not such a terrible crime. If we didn’t buy it, all that food would go to waste, and that would be a crime. It’s only for the officers, not for ourselves, and besides, it’s rather dashing to buy black-market food to give to the troops. Like Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to help the rich—I mean the other way round.’
That, however, remained very much to be seen, as Lucia welcomed her guests the next evening. There was Lord Tony, and the dashing Captain Oldshaw; no Henry (and therefore, mercifully, no Irene) but instead there was Lieutenant Custard, an excessively shy young man with large pink ears who before the war had been that sophisticated playwright Grant Fever, author of the scandalous play Hollow Shells. There was also David Ashby, who was an anthropologist and had been to many quite extraordinary places. All in all there never had been such a brilliant gathering of officers at Mallards, but it was not the enfant terrible of the British stage that Lucia fixed her attention upon, nor yet the discoverer of five quite unknown African tribes. Rather, it was Elizabeth Mapp-Flint that she observed the most closely, as no doubt Major Benjy in his youth had studied a tiger which was in the act of deciding whether or not to spring. In theory Lucia was safe from anything Elizabeth might do; in practice, however, anything might happen. Certainly the arrival of the salmon mousse, greeted with cries of rapture by the rest of the table, seemed to twist some nerve in Elizabeth’s face, so that she winced as if forcibly restraining herself from some violent exclamation. As for the leg of lamb, Thyestes could not have looked so shocked when, duped by his foes, he ate his own son’s flesh. Yet still Elizabeth kept her silence, contenting herself with a savage smile that caused Georgie, who intercepted it on its way to Lucia, to spill his glass of wine. As the meal dragged on, Lucia almost wished that she would make her move, but still she chatted to Captain Oldshaw about Napoleon and Ilkley Moor.
The leg of lamb departed and was replaced with the orange soufflé. It was a fine specimen, light as a feather and tall as a steeple, and it seemed to fascinate Elizabeth like a hypnotist’s watch. She felt the blood pounding through her veins, and began to speak.
‘Lulu, dear, what a particularly splendid soufflé. How clever you are—such flavour’
Despite the white wine, Lucia’s palate was dry. She tried to speak but could only manage a broad smile.
‘My congratulations, Mrs. Pillson,’ said Captain Oldshaw. ‘Haven’t tasted anything like this since before the war. Mind you, my sister in Harrogate makes a very fine orange soufflé. Not as fine as this, though.’
‘And so clever of you to have managed to find all the ingredients,’ continued Elizabeth remorselessly. ‘I haven’t been able to get any oranges for simply ages.’
‘Oh, you can pick them up in the High Street from time to time,’ replied Lucia, without thinking what she was saying. This seemed to urge Elizabeth towards the kill.
For her part, Elizabeth smiled, showing all her teeth. ‘Really, dear? You must tell me where you get yours, then, for I’m sure I haven’t seen any such thing in the shops myself.’
‘I don’t know about you or Mrs. Pillson,’ said Lord Tony, ‘but I can usually find one or two on the marché noir, although the price is exorbitant. Such a benign institution, if one doesn’t mind risking the condemnation of a few narrow-minded souls. But really, if one refused to eat anything that couldn’t show its papers, so to speak, one would grow as thin as a rake, and anyone can see by my deplorable figure that I don’t get by on Army rations.’
Elizabeth had been engaged in swallowing a spoonful of soufflé as he said this, and a sort of minor explosion occurred in her mouth, followed by some violent coughing. From malicious joy her expression had changed to outraged innocence (for despite her scrupulous honesty she had managed to preserve her ample shape; if stoutness was equated with black marketeering, she must be accused) and as soon as she was clear of soufflé-shrapnel she exclaimed, ‘Oh, shame on you, dear Lord Limpsfield, encouraging us civilians to indulge in such unpatriotic activities! I would never dream of doing such a thing.’
‘Well now, Mrs. Mapp-Flint,’ replied Lord Tony with a twinkle in his eye, ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t, but in that case I’m equally sure I would never come to dinner at your house—Grebe, isn’t it?—for I’m afraid I like my food, and if I’m to be called upon to drive Hitler into the sea at a moment’s notice I would hate to have to do it on Army fare. Isn’t that so, Oldshaw?’
‘Quite right, Limpsfield. I’m sure the Hun has no such compunctions. Stuffing himself with all that French cuisine, I shouldn’t wonder. Wouldn’t like to face a storm trooper stuffed with crêpes suzettes on an ounce of boiled beef and two carrots.
‘’Pon my soul, Liz,’ said Major Benjy, whose perceptions may have been clouded slightly by Lucia’s excellent wine, ‘I couldn’t have got through my spell in His Majesty’s service—India, you know—’ (they did) ‘without a square meal inside me. Come to that, we’re not so blameless ourselves.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried Elizabeth hoarsely.
‘Well, when I was looking for a handkerchief the other day,’ he replied, eager to ally himself to the band of dashing buccaneers, ‘I came across an orange in the drawer. Now I dare say that that never saw the inside of Twistevant’s, eh, old girl? Went down a treat, as well.’ And he winked broadly.
Elizabeth cast down her napkin and stood up.
‘Come now, Benjy, we must be going home. Such a long way back to Grebe in the black-out. Thank you so much for our delicious dinner, Lulu darling. So sweet of you to ask us. Come, Benjy.’
‘But I haven’t had any coffee,’ said Benjy, as the excellent wine began to assert itself. ‘A cup of coffee and a li’l spot port with my friend Lord Tony Limpsfield. Spot of coffee, cup of port, li’l rubber of Bridge. Don’t want to go back to Grebe yet. Want spot port and cup of coffee.’
‘My driver will run you home in the Humber, Mrs. Mapp-Flint,’ said Lord Tony. ‘You mustn’t dream of leaving us yet.’
‘No, dear Lord Limpsfield, I couldn’t allow Army petrol to be wasted on us. Benjy!’
Bitter and dark as any cup of coffee were Elizabeth’s thoughts as she strode back to Grebe through the gathering gloom. It was just as well, she thought to herself, that she had declined Lord Tony’s offer; anyone who had seen her riding home in the Humber would no doubt assume that she had been arrested for black-marketeering and was being taken off to prison. Major Benjy, having got over the disappointment of not having any coffee, declared that he wanted to go down to the Harbour and inspect the troops, and Elizabeth had a job to prevent him, so carried away was he by contact with soldiers. Arriving at last at Grebe, she took two Aspros and went to bed. Meanwhile, at Mallards Lucia was playing the opening bars of the Moonlight Sonata....