Lucia’s views on Bridge were soon known all over Tilling and were greeted with dismay. All eyes were turned to Elizabeth, as the natural leader of the resistance movement, but she declared that the same thoughts had been running through her mind for several weeks, and that she entirely agreed with dear Lucia, in this as in everything. How clever of her sweet friend to lead the way! How grateful she was!
‘But Elizabeth,’ said Evie, as they stood in Twistevants queue, no more Bridge! It’s appalling. What shall we do?’
Elizabeth smiled broadly.
‘What a sweet Philistine you are, Evie dear. Why, I welcome this initiative. I applaud it. What would we do without our Lucia? And her kind, kind offer to teach us all to play the piano, although I’ll warrant that none of us will ever be able to play as daintily as she. I dare say that I have little enough talent in that direction, yet I have already begged Lucia to take me on as a pupil. And I am delighted to say that she has agreed to it. Such music, Evie dear, all day, every day. And poetry too, so she says. Now won’t that be fun!’
‘Ho!’ said Diva, who was standing behind her. ‘Poetry as well! If it wasn’t for Mr. Georgie’s cooking, I wouldn’t set foot in Mallards again. And I’m not sure that I will, anyway. Surely you aren’t in favour of this, Elizabeth?’
She gazed up at Elizabeth pleadingly.
‘I think it would do you the world of good, Diva,’ replied Elizabeth. ‘We have been friends now for a long time, and I feel it my duty to speak plainly to you. You have been vegetating for too long. Your soul is rusty. Your mind is a closed room, a smoke-filled tap-room where men eat, drink and play cards, and never consider Art and Music. What has become of your painting, you darling reprobate, your delicious watercolours? No, it is high time we all took stock of ourselves. This terrible war is an opportunity for us all to reflect on what matters most in life. We are not fighting for Bridge and boiled cabbage, but for Beauty and Truth. Don’t you agree?’
‘No,’ said Diva, who thought it all nonsense, ‘but I suppose if everyone else is going to give it up, I shall have to follow suit. Can’t play Bridge on my own. This is too bad of you, Elizabeth. I don’t know what’s come over you lately.’
Elizabeth’s smile was as luminous as ever, but in her heart there was bitterness. As she handed over her ration-book, she mused on whether it might be possible, without running undue risks of detection and retribution, to murder Lucia and hide her body in the secret cupboard in the garden-room.
Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Major Benjy in the High Street, with Georgie, hurrying in the direction of Malleson Street. She wondered what this could mean, but her spirit was so heavily laden with her own misery that her usual analytical powers failed her, and she dismissed the incident from her mind. Had she been less dispirited, she might have guessed the truth and so been in time to stop them. For Georgie was on his way to try on his uniform (he had insisted on this before taking the drastic step of inscribing his name on the Nominal Roll), and Major Benjy, his teeth gritted and his jaw set, was quietly confident that he had found his new sergeant.
Georgie examined himself in the cracked mirror of the Institute, and positioned the beautifully embroidered stripes on his arm. They completed the entirely favourable impression.
‘Will I have to shave off my beard?’ he enquired, suddenly struck by this horrible thought. It was some time now since he had seen his chin, and he was afraid lest it had declined somewhat.
‘Well, you would usually have to,’ replied the Major. Georgie’s face fell. ‘But it is at the—ah—discretion of the commanding officer to make exceptions. I’m sure we can overlook it, just this once.’
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Georgie. ‘I do think that’s smart. Can I see a rifle now?’ he asked with the air of a customer in a Bond Street shop.
‘Let’s not rush things,’ said the Major, afraid that all his work might be undone were Georgie to come into contact prematurely with one of the instruments of destruction. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that sort of thing later.’ He searched his mind for something to say. ‘Nice shade of brown, the rifle we use here. It’ll go nicely with your beard.’
‘Very well, then. I’ll do it. Where do I sign?’
‘Just a moment,’ said the Major. ‘I’ll get the Roll. Damn’ it, it doesn’t seem to be here. It must be in my desk over at Grebe. Tell you what, I’ll just nip up home and fetch it. You go back and sew on those stripes.’
‘I’d better change first,’ said Georgie, embarrassed by the thought of walking through the streets in uniform. ‘I’m not really entitled to wear these clothes yet.’
‘Nonsense, my boy, you go right ahead. Take a pride in the uniform. Think of the admiring glances of the ladies, bless ’em.’ He guffawed.
Nevertheless, Georgie put his cape over the uniform of which he was so proud, and took a long détour to avoid the High Street. He slipped into Mallards and removed the cape, only to find himself face to face with Lucia.
She had been taking a cup of coffee out to the garden-room, where she had planned a quiet hour at the piano. Seeing a strange man in uniform, possibly a German in disguise, standing in her hall, she screamed and dropped the cup.
‘Lucia!’ exclaimed Georgie. ‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s me! Georgie!’ he added to remove all further uncertainty.
‘Georgie?’ she repeated feebly. ‘What are you doing in those clothes?’
‘It’s my uniform,’ he said proudly. ‘I’m the new Home Guard sergeant.’
Lucia stared at him as if he had changed into a frog.
‘You’re joking,’ she said at last.
‘No, I’m not. I’ve decided to do my bit. It’s high time I did something other than cook and write scripts for broadcasts. Besides, Major Benjy said that everyone in Tilling expected it of me. And don’t you go saying that I can’t because I’ve made up my mind. Here, what do you think of these stripes? I did them myself. Aren’t the colours nice?’
Lucia continued to stare at him, so that he wondered if she was about to have some sort of fit.
‘It’s no use looking at me like that,’ he went on, feeling more and more sheepish by the minute. ‘And I think I look very well in the uniform. And Major Benjy says I can keep my beard, because it goes so well with the rifles. I haven’t seen any rifles yet, of course. I don’t think you see them until you’ve actually signed up.’
‘So you haven’t signed anything yet?’
‘No, not yet. But I will,’ he added defiantly.
Lucia paused and counted from one to five in her head. Sometimes she wanted to hit Georgie.
‘Darling,’ she said sweetly, ‘why on earth should you want to join the Home Guard? You’d hate it. Why, I remember that when I wanted you to be an A.R.P. warden you were full of reasons against it. Very cogent reasons they were, too,’ she added quickly, ‘as I recall. And that was before you discovered your true calling, your real vocation. Everyone says so—think of Lord Tony, think of Teddy Broome. Think of Olga,’ she added for good measure, and then wished she hadn’t. ‘Think of me. Think how disappointed we’d all be if you laid aside this wonderful talent, this national resource of yours.’
‘You make me sound like a coal-mine,’ said Georgie crossly.
‘It is from the mines of our talented men that we draw the ore that makes the sinews of war,’ said Lucia grandly. ‘Indeed it’s a very apt parallel. Think of all those brave coal-miners, cutting the coal that feeds the furnaces that smelt the steel ....’
She stopped. This was turning into a nursery rhyme.
‘I’m sure they’d all like to join up, but the Government makes them stay at home.’
‘But I needn’t give up my work for the Government. I’d only be needed in the evening most of the time. Major Benjy assured me of that. I’d have plenty of time to do recipes and write scripts. Think how grand it would sound: “Making the Most of Your Ration-Book”, with Sergeant Pillson!’
Something seemed to fall into place in Lucia’s mind. Of course! How could she have been so blind!
‘You realise what’s going on, Georgie?’ she said. ‘You realise why Major Benjy is so keen to make you his sergeant—I take it he’s been nagging away at you, wheedling you into accepting?’
Georgie nodded. How had she guessed?
‘Elizabeth’s behind this, you mark my words. She just wants to stop me holding my dinner parties. So she’s made poor Major Benjy trick you into joining his Home Guard.’
‘What on earth has it all got to do with Elizabeth?’ demanded Georgie, but with a failing heart. Dimly he perceived her meaning.
‘Why, it’s obvious, dear. If you’re out every evening, stomping up and down the Harbour with all those old men and catching your death of cold, you won’t be able to cook dinner for my guests. It’s pure spite, that’s what it is. I think you’ll find she’s trying to lure you away, just to stop me.’
‘She wouldn’t!’ wailed Georgie. ‘She wouldn’t be so devious!’
‘She would!’ cried Lucia vehemently, and Georgie agreed with her in his heart.
‘She’s furious because she can’t get at me any more, and she’s trying to find a way to do it without it seeming to be her. So she’s got poor Major Benjy to do her dirty work for her. How I pity that man!’
The bottom had suddenly fallen out of Georgie’s world. All the bright visions, the cheering crowds, the renewal of youth, all gone, leaving only an echo of mockery behind. He wasn’t a civic leader after all.
Lucia saw that she was having some effect.
‘You wouldn’t want to be used like that, not by Elizabeth? Too shaming, and everyone laughing behind your back. Of course, you would make an excellent sergeant under other circumstances.’ (What other circumstances? God alone knew.) ‘Your bearing, your manly features. Why, you are the very image of one or other of King Charles’s Generals. Prince Rupert, even. But you couldn’t possibly accept office under such conditions. Your pride would not permit it.’
‘No, of course not,’ said Georgie stiffly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. And how dare Elizabeth try and use me against you! It’s too bad. I’ve got a good mind to—to punch Major Benjy on the nose!’
‘No need,’ said Lucia soothingly. ‘Ickle Lucia not want big strong men fighting over her. Besides, he might hit you back, and that would be too distressing. No, me got a plan of my vewwy own. Me teach naughty Elizabeth a lesson she not forget. Oh yes,’ she added with relish.
‘My dear, what are you going to do?’ demanded Georgie fascinated. This was more like the old Lucia; not the haughty, superior, Bridge-suppressing dictator, but the prime mover of Tilling life, the bringer of excitement.
‘I think we might have a little dinner party, Georgie. All our friends, including, of course, Elizabeth. And what do you think they’ll see on the mantelpiece as they sip their sherry? I’ll wager you’ll never guess.’
‘No!’ gasped Georgie. ‘The invitation! Oh how glorious! That’ll show her.’
‘Not a word from you or me, of course. Let it be a silent indictment of that woman’s evil nature. And now, please go and take off those dreadful clothes.’
‘Oh Lord, I’d completely forgotten!’ said Georgie. ‘Major Benjy’s waiting for me to sign his dratted register. And my second-best fawn trousers are at the Institute.’
Major Benjy walked briskly back to Grebe, anxious to fetch the vital documents quickly and bring his subtle stratagem to fruition. Not bad at all for an old soldier, he reflected, a man like himself, used to simple and straightforward dealings. But Benjy Flint could be as ingenious as any of the old cats of Tilling on his day. And wouldn’t Elizabeth be pleased!
The Roll was not in its accustomed place. He searched in the whisky-flask desk, on the bookshelves, even behind the sofa. No sign of it.
‘Liz,’ he called, ‘have you seen the Nominal Roll?’
‘The what, dear?’ she called back from the garden. ‘And please don’t bellow like that. I’m not deaf, although I’m sure I shall be soon if you keep on shouting like that.’
‘Sorry, old girl,’ he said, ‘but I’m looking for the Nominal Roll. The Home Guard Register, don’t you know. I think I’ve found us a new sergeant.’
‘How exciting,’ said his wife, bustling in from the kitchen. ‘Who is it?’
‘Guess!’ chuckled the Major. He had planned to keep it a surprise, but now seemed as good a time as any to he congratulated for his cleverness.
‘Hopkins?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘No.’
‘The Padre? Algernon Wyse?’
‘Wrong and wrong again. I didn’t think you’d guess. Not the likeliest person to be a leader of men, I’ll admit, nor the best suited for the job, not by a long chalk. But it’s not Hitler that this particular sergeant’s going to be putting in his place. It’s that other dictator we were talking about.’
‘Mussolini?’ hazarded Elizabeth vaguely.
‘No, no, old girl. It’s a certain wretch whom we once thought of as a friend of sorts, but who betrayed our friendship in a most foul and despicable way.’
‘You mean Marshal Petain?’
‘No. Lucia, Lucia Pillson. I’ve got Mr. Georgie Pillson to be the new sergeant. Sergeant Milliner Michael-Angelo. Ha!’
‘But why should Mr. Georgie want to be in the Home Guard?’ demanded Elizabeth. Something was wrong here, she thought.
‘Because I persuaded him, that’s why. Dickens of a job it was, too. But nothing to old Silver-Tongued Benjy, as they used to call me. So that’ll put a stop to our Lucia’s jolly dinner parties, unless she’s prepared to put on an apron and peel the carrots herself. When Georgie-boy should be down in the kitchen cooking dinner, he’ll be out with me, marching up and down the Military Road, and may God help him if his belt-buckles are tarnished! Revenge is sweet, eh? I knew you’d be pleased.’
‘Fool!’ cried Elizabeth hoarsely. ‘Fool, fool, fool!’ She began to sob.
‘Steady on, old thing,’ urged the flabbergasted Major. This was not the reaction he had expected.
‘You wretch!’ she screamed. ‘How could you do this to me after all the work I’ve done, the agonies I’ve suffered, abasing myself before that creature! Silver-Tongued Benjy, was it? Idiot Benjy it must be from now on. I suppose you must have been drunk at the time, but that is no excuse. I shall never, never speak to you again.’
At this juncture, that seemed a very agreeable prospect. Unfortunately it was not to be, for she continued:
‘You know what she’ll do, as soon as she’s seen through your infantile scheme, which will take her precisely three seconds? She’ll show that invitation to everyone and start telling them—the most terrible lies about me. Oh how cruel!’
‘Hang on, Liz. I said she won’t be able to see through it.’
‘She’ll see through it all right. She’ll think I put you up to it. It’s bad enough that Lucia should think me capable of such a puerile stratagem.’
The full injustice of this aspect of the disaster seemed to go through Elizabeth like a knife. She struggled to contain her emotions, like an overheating engine, and then she seized one of her china pigs and dashed it to the ground.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she howled.
‘Well, I’m sorry, I’m sure,’ said the Major, trying to sound offended but making a poor job of it. ‘I only did what I thought was for the best, as an old soldier and a gentleman. I apologise for my thoughtless conduct, which was unworthy of one of His Majesty’s officers, unworthy indeed,’ he added, ‘of any Englishman. Dashed silly thing to do.’
Elizabeth picked up a copy of the Daily Mirror and began to tear it to pieces. This seemed to calm her down, for she spoke in level tones.
‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ she said, as she crumpled a picture of Mr. Anthony Eden into a tight ball. ‘What did you say to him?’
‘I suggested that he might like to be our sergeant,’ Major Benjy almost whispered. ‘Said it was his duty, and all that. He seemed very keen.’
‘Well, the damage is done. Or is it, Benjy? The Roll, has he signed it?’
‘Of course not. I was just looking for it.’
A faint glimmer of hope dawned in Elizabeth’s mind.
‘And where is he now?’
‘He went back to Mallards to sew on his sergeant’s stripes, while I came back here to get the Roll. Chances are that Lucia hasn’t seen him yet. She may not know anything about it.’
‘Thank God he didn’t sign,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Well, don’t stand there. Run back to town and tell him it’s all been a ghastly mistake. Say that his cooking must come first. Say anything! Run!’
And Major Benjy ran.
Exhausted and perspiring heavily, almost dehydrated by the lack of whisky and soda, the Major burst through the door of the Institute, only to find Georgie, attired in civilian dress, collecting his second-best fawn trousers, with an air of utter disdain.
‘Pillson, my dear feller! So glad I managed to catch you!’ panted the Major. To the best of his knowledge, he had not run a step since he had last seen a tiger.
‘I’m afraid there’s been the most terrible mistake.’
‘There certainly has, Major Mapp-Flint,’ replied Georgie, icily. ‘A very serious mistake on your part.’
Major Benjy sagged. There on the table was Georgie’s uniform, beautifully folded and pressed by Foljambe. Beside it, a pair of sergeant’s stripes, splendidly embroidered in yellow gold, seemed to grin at the Major like the yawning jaws of a shark.
‘You haven’t told your wife about this, have you?’ panted the Major.
It was Mrs. Pillson who revealed to me the extent of your treachery, Major Mapp-Flint. You have attempted to use me as a pawn in a sordid intrigue.’ Georgie paused. Did one use pawns in sordid intrigues? Never having been in one himself, he could not say. ‘As a result I cannot accept the appointment. I wish you all success in your search for a suitable candidate.’
‘It was all my idea,’ said the Major desperately. ‘Elizabeth knew nothing.’
‘Your chivalry seems somewhat misplaced, Major,’ returned Georgie coldly. ‘I am surprised that a distinguished soldier like yourself should be capable of using the commission entrusted to you by the King in such a frivolous way. I expected more of you, Major Flint.’ This phrase reopened the barely closed wound, and with a passionate throb in his voice he burst out, ‘You said I was a civic leader! It’s too unkind! Good day to you, Major Mapp-Flint!’
He swept out of the Institute and slammed the door behind him. It would have been a fine, dignified exit had he not caught the hem of his cape in the door and had to reopen it to twitch it free.
‘Tar’some thing!’ he exclaimed, and was gone.
‘Damn’, ’ said the Major. ‘Now what shall I do?’
For once, he knew the answer to that question. He rose to his feet and from a crate marked ‘Explosives’ he drew a bottle of whisky. He had often had recourse to such explosives during his career as a Home Guard commander, but even this secret weapon did not seem likely to do more than ameliorate his own condition. Gloomily he trudged back to Grebe, kicking a small stone in front of him. He knew how it felt.
‘No luck,’ he confessed, as he came into the presence of his wife. ‘He’s found out. Pillson was quite rude to me.’
‘Well, that’s that,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We shall have to sell this house and move away. I can’t face what people will say, I really can’t.’
‘Cheer up, Liz, we aren’t done for yet,’ said the Major, trying to sound nonchalant, and failing. ‘You’ll have to tell everyone the truth. I don’t think Lucia is all that popular these days.’
‘That’s true,’ mused Elizabeth. ‘She’s trying to stop them playing Bridge and wants them all to learn the piano. Diva was urging me to defy her only the other day.’
‘And the Padre says he’s going to preach a sermon on Tolerance on Sunday, with a veiled attack on Lucia in it,’ remembered the Major. ‘Or was it Hitler?’
‘And even the Wyses say that they’re too set in their ways to learn the piano, and they don’t think Bridge at all frivolous. Benjy, I think we have a chance after all. Ah! and I have an idea.’
‘Well done, old girl! Tell me about it.’
‘She’s sure to invite them all to dinner tomorrow night to show them the invitation. Very well, then. I’ll speak to them all in the morning at marketing hour and tell them my story. The truth, I mean, and then I’ll say how much Lucia’s tormented me, and that’s why I haven’t been able to put a stop to this no-Bridge nonsense. If I stress that bit, they’ll all take my side, because it’ll be me against Lucia about Bridge. We can’t lose!’
‘Brilliant!’ exclaimed the Major, deeply impressed. ‘And so courageous. You’re a marvel, Liz.’
Elizabeth smiled and reflected that if her account was not yet strictly true, it would be so indistinguishable from the truth that no one, except possibly Lucia, would ever be able to tell the difference.
The invitations were sent out; the word Bridge was missing from the left-hand corner. Elizabeth rejoiced, for the enemy had played directly into her hands. Her apologia was received with more sympathy and understanding than she had dared to hope, and this encouragement enabled her to rise to unprecedented pinnacles of the dramatic art. She was hurt, wounded, ashamed, repentant and defiant, from Twistevant’s in the west to Worthington’s in the east, and the power and intensity of her performance reached such a crescendo that Mrs. Bartlett, who was the last to hear it, was almost in tears by the time she had finished.
Tilling hated mysteries, as Nature is said to abhor a vacuum; the mystery of Elizabeth’s curious self-humiliation before Lucia had now been solved and was most thrilling. In fact, the simple act of explanation, had she known it, would probably have vouchsafed absolution for Elizabeth. As it was, her masterly reworking of the facts had roused Tilling to a frenzy of excitement, so that people stood in queues for things they had no intention of buying simply in order to discuss the news with someone else. Certain aspects of the tale puzzled them; chiefly they had wondered why, considering the innocence of Elizabeth’s motives in opening the letter, she had not told Lucia about it, and how it was that she had been so worried by Lucia’s threat to expose her as a fraud. For all agreed that no one would have believed such an unkind and patently false account as Lucia had evidently threatened to tell them; why, the story would not even fit the known facts. On one thing, all were agreed: it was so like Lucia. Not the Lucia they had known and loved all these years, but the new, tyrannical Lucia, the Bridge-banner, the piano-enforcer. ‘Typical!’ they said. ‘And how poor Elizabeth must have suffered!’
Whether they would have proved so gullible had not Lucia made such a terrible blunder, it is hard to say. But Bridge was indeed the very life-blood of Tilling; its deceptions, its speculations, its psychic bids were a microcosm of the town itself. Around the Bridge-table all the animosities of the last few days were reaped and threshed, and the seeds of new ones planted in their place, to grow to maturity in time for the next Bridge party in a few days’ time. It was the communion of the tribe, the stylised re-enactment of their daily lives. As the ritual of Adonis represents the death and rebirth of Nature, so the Bridge of Tilling embodied in its time-honoured patterns of misunderstood bids, revokes and bitter recriminations the whole social life-cycle of the population. To threaten Bridge was to threaten the very fabric of their society, and if Lucia thought that a dull evening listening to her hammering out the same old pieces on the piano was any substitute for this vital and meaningful activity, she was very much mistaken.
Elizabeth, unaccompanied by Major Benjy, who was busy with his explosives at the Institute, was the last to arrive at Mallards that evening, and all considered this a hopeful sign. They all remembered the good old days, when she had made a point of always arriving last at any gathering. After Lucia’s coming, it had always been a matter of honour that Elizabeth was the last to arrive at Lucia’s house, and Lucia the last to arrive at Elizabeth’s. Indeed, one fine evening, Elizabeth had walked four times round Church Square and read half the headstones in the grave-yard because she saw the Wyses arriving at Mallards just when she was on the point of going in herself.
The guests were ushered into the garden-room for a glass of sherry. There, on the mantelpiece, was the fateful rectangle of white card that must surely seal Elizabeth’s doom. On either side of it were two dazzling flower-arrangements that even a person with poor eyesight could not fail to notice, flanked by a selection of books that Lucia knew her friends were eager to borrow: a work on spiritualism for Susan, The Irish Setter in Sickness and in Health for Diva, and a rare edition of Burns for the Padre.
‘Diva, dear, how marvellous you look!’ crooned Lucia, ‘and Evie and dear Padre! Such thrilling news of our beloved Highland Regiments! Mr. Wyse, how elegant, and you, too, dear Susan. I declare I feel dowdy by comparison. Ah, there you are, Elizabeth, we were afraid you were not going to come. No Major Benjy? How sad! Still, it is such important work that he is doing, is it not? Up and down the Harbour, and in all weathers too.’
Elizabeth smiled like a shark.
‘Essential,’ she agreed. ‘But so much easier now that he has found a man to be his sergeant.’
‘How exciting! Who?’
‘Hopkins the fishmonger has finally heard the call of duty,’ said Elizabeth grandly. ‘Major Benjy managed to persuade him at last. He can be so persuasive at times—no wonder his colleagues in Burma used to call him Silver-Tongued Benjy! Of course, he interviewed so many men for the job—many, many eager applicants—but not one of them up to his very high standards. What was needed, we felt, was a man respected in the community. Only the best for our dear Tilling, I insisted, and he agreed with me. Dear Lucia, you should have seen some of the paltry fellows who thought they might have a chance. Of course, when Major Benjy told them what the job involved, they scuttled away with their tails between their legs.’
A tremor of excitement ran round the room. This was war. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, Georgie had applied to be sergeant and had been turned down in favour of Hopkins. This was better than any of them had dared to hope.
‘Such a difficult choice,’ squeaked Evie, daringly. She had been one of those most deeply moved by the proposed abolition of Bridge. ‘So few people in the town capable of doing the job, so many of them believing that they could. Poor Major Benjy!’
‘He said it was very hard to find words for a tactful refusal,’ continued Elizabeth blithely. ‘Some of them were quite angry and rude, and stormed off in a huff. Such bad manners!’
‘Ah weel!’ said the Padre, another inveterate gambler, ‘tes a’ well that ends well. And yon Hopkins is a fine figure of a man, what wi’ haulin’ around the crates of wee fishies.’
‘Indeed,’ said Lucia coldly. ‘I’m sure we’ll all feel much better knowing that the strong arm of Mr. Hopkins has been raised up to protect us.’
‘Fie, Lucia, to be so frivolous’ (that dread word!) ‘about our brave Home Guard. I’m sure Mr. Georgie doesn’t share your low opinion of them,’ said Elizabeth, staring straight at the invitation and smiling yet more enormously.
‘On the contrary, on the contrary,’ muttered Lucia, totally confused. Were they all blind? Was the room too dark?
‘What delightful flowers, Mrs. Pillson,’ said Mr. Wyse solemnly, stepping over to the mantelpiece and burying his nose in the explosion of primary colours that Lucia had placed there. As he did so, his eye was but a few inches from the invitation, so that had he been half-blind he must have read it. But clearly he was far too well bred to peruse other people’s letters, for he turned and said, ‘Exquisite chrysanthemums. Or should one perhaps call them chrysanthema? Thus the Greek plural, although the ending “-um” is Latin. But then, chrysanthema would be correct in either case, would it not, Mrs. Pillson?’
Lucia’s only reply was to gurgle inarticulately. To be sure, this was the erudite and learned conversation that she longed to hear replacing the endless cries of ‘Three hearts!’ and ‘I thought you had no more clubs’ in her beloved garden-room. But there was a time and place for everything.
‘That’s always puzzled me,’ said Diva, who had never given the subject a moments thought before. ‘Greek name, Latin ending. Odd.’
‘It is an established etymological phenomenon in botanical circles, I believe,’ intoned Mr. Wyse gravely. ‘Often the first of two scientific names accorded to each individual species is of Greek derivation, whereas the second is of Latin origin. Thus in the case of Pyracanthus latefolia, Pyracanthus is, I scarcely need remind you, formed from two Greek words, while latefolia is a Latin compound. Indeed, some names of plants are macaronic within the same word.’
‘Gosh!’ said Diva. She had not the faintest idea what he was talking about, but Lucia’s face was a prettier sight than all the pyracanthuses (or pyracanthi) in Christendom.
‘’Tes often the case that a wee flower is clept after the wight that first discovered it. Dahlia. Fuchsia. Ah, ’twud be a gladsome thing to be thus remembered. Now, if I were tae discover a new azalea, a’ mankind would ken wha it was that first identified Azalea bartlettii.’
‘What wonderful flowers they must have at Windsor!’ snarled Lucia, crossing to the mantelpiece.
‘Not nearly as fine as the gardens at Kew,’ interrupted Evie. ‘Kenneth and I visited them once. Such colours.’
With a deliberate movement, Lucia knocked the invitation off the mantelpiece. It fluttered to the ground and came to rest at Mr. Wyse’s feet. Gracefully, he stooped and picked it up, smiled and then replaced it on the mantelpiece. Lucia stared at him.
‘Ah, dear Padre,’ she growled, ‘here is a book I promised to lend you. Do come and see.’
‘Thank ye, Mistress Pillson, but as it so chances I managed tae buy a copy o’ the self-same edition only the ither week. Sich a bargain ’twas too, at only three shillings.’
‘And here is a book I have promised you many times, Diva,’ Lucia ground on remorselessly. ‘About Irish setters, you recall.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Diva, and she flushed red. ‘Just so happens I managed to pick up a copy of that the other day myself. What a coincidence!’
‘How fortunate! Now, here is one for you, dear Susan.’ Lucia was beginning to sound like a Sunday-school prize-giving. ‘I recall that you asked me for it only the other day, so I searched the house from top to bottom and here it is!’
‘Oh I don’t think so!’ replied Susan. ‘On the contrary, I think I offered to lend you my copy. I think you must have got muddled up. Fancy you having one too! Such a fine work! Such sensitivity!’
Lucia could feel sweat breaking out on her forehead, although it may just have been the warmth of the fire. Reluctantly she came away from the fireplace and drank her sherry rather quickly.
‘I do hope Mr. Georgie has cooked us something special. He has been working rather a lot recently on turnips. I believe he intends to name this particular dish after the King.’
‘That’s handy,’ said Diva, ‘seeing as how they’re both called George. I bet he’s really named it after himself. And why not? Interesting name, George.’
‘Originally,’ said Mr. Wyse, ‘derived from the Greek word meaning a farmer. Its popularity in this country is, of course, due to its being the name of our patron saint. Yet St. George was originally a Greek saint. Perhaps you can enlighten us on that subject, Padre?’
This dazzling display of scholarship threatened to overwhelm Lucia, for she gasped and sat down hurriedly. Obviously they were all deliberately ignoring the invitation. But why? Just then Foljambe announced dinner and the assembled company made its way through to the dining-room. There Georgie was standing, as was his custom. It had been a delicate matter for him to decide, for since he cooked the food, he felt he ought to stay with it and to be on hand to sponsor its arrival, so to speak, rather than abandoning it to the charge of Foljambe once he had brought it to life. On the other hand, he could not bring himself to pass round the plates, feeling (and rightly so) that it would embarrass the guests to be waited on by their host. So he usually remained standing up at least until the soup arrived and ate his portion quickly so as to be able to dash off to the kitchen to inspect the next course and return to his seat before Foljambe produced it. This ritual not infrequently gave him indigestion, but he felt that that was right and proper, in a way; the artist must suffer and by his suffering ennoble the world.
Lucia took her place at the head of the table. She had, in her desperation, thought of bringing the invitation card in with her; but that would not achieve anything. For some reason, everyone was ignoring it. Again she asked herself why. What had she done?
‘Hello, everyone,’ said Georgie. He was amazed to see them all so cheerful, when there should have been an uncomfortable silence. But there was Elizabeth, kissing her hand to Lucia as she took her seat at the opposite end of the table. This placing had been intended to isolate her, to put her on view after her disgrace. But now she sat in state, like a one-woman government in exile, and it was Lucia who felt excluded. Georgie shook his head and turned round to see what had become of the soup. By Lucia’s express command it was Brown Windsor.
‘Why Mr. Georgie, what delicious oxtail!’ exclaimed Elizabeth, and a chorus of approbation arose from her fellow-guests. Yet it was impossible to contradict such flattery; to him it tasted like Brown Windsor, but the artist is but one interpreter of his own work. To Leonardo, no doubt, the Madonna’s smile was but a smile; to the succeeding generations it has meant much more. So if Georgie thought his soup was Brown Windsor, Georgie must be mistaken. It was all most confusing.
To Lucia, it might as well have been chicken broth. So far as she could think coherently in this disaster, she was reconstructing all the possible causes for this drastic peripeteia in her fortunes. Had she perchance, walking in her sleep or under the influence of automatism, been overheard humming Haydn’s Austrian Hymn? Had mysterious lights been seen at the windows of Mallards? She resolved upon one last attempt; should that fail, she decided, she would leave Tilling for ever, to end her days as a hermit on some rocky Scottish island, singing madrigals to the unheeding breakers.
‘Tell me, Elizabeth,’ she nearly shouted through the buzz of conversation, ‘when you were at Windsor ....’
Simultaneously, Susan Wyse (on her left) and the Padre (on her right) began to talk to her loudly and rapidly; both, as it so happened, declaring what a comfort it was, in such dark days as these, that they still had the simple pleasures of life to console themselves with—such as a game of Bridge among friends. Like the stichomythia of the Attic drama, they recounted celebrated Bridge-games of the past—the distant past, in fact, for without exception they dated from before Lucia’s arrival in Tilling.
‘I remember when Elizabeth made two slam declarations in a row and won them both! Such daring! It cost me six shillings, but I begrudged her not a penny! Before your time, I think, Lucia dear. A pity. You should have seen it!’
‘Ah, right weel do I recall it, Mistress Wyse. And do ye recall that evening in this very room, when Mistress Mapp—as she then was, drew a hand of four aces and three kings? That was a canny no-trumps hand and no mistake!’
Like the motifs in a piece of music, these themes recurred again and again; the pleasure of Bridge, Bridge at Mallards, Mallards before Lucia. Gradually, the whole table except Lucia and Georgie took up the refrain until it resembled some intricate fugue in which the vital elements are so closely interwoven that they merge one with another; Elizabeth, Bridge, and no Lucia.
Only then was it that Lucia realised what had happened and it took her breath away. Because she had suggested, gently and hypothetically, that every hour of every day need not be spent in playing cards, the whole town had deliberately resolved to take no notice whatever of one of the most sensational incidents in the history of Tilling since its capture by the French in the Hundred Years’ War. How was I to know? demanded Lucia of her much enduring soul. As the voices raged around her like the sea, she could think of nothing that might alter this situation. All the town was united against her, there was an end of it.
It hardly seems necessary to add that the rubbers of Bridge that followed this ill-starred meal, for follow they did, were of a quality scarcely if ever seen before in Sussex. At times, four aces seemed to be the absolute minimum in a pack of cards. When diamonds were trumps, each player’s hand resembled some Rajah’s crown. Doublings and redoublings were legion and if the president of the Society for Psychical Research had been present, he would have gloried in the innumerable and successful psychic bids. Even the normally impassive Mr. Wyse was gripped with excitement. For all that Georgie had developed a substance indistinguishable from nougat chocolate, Diva was so enthralled by the conflict that she scarcely touched the second plateful. Finally, when the smoke and din of battle was lifted, Elizabeth rose from the tables no less than eight shillings richer, while Lucia’s purse was lighter by an exactly corresponding amount. Everyone else had broken more or less even, so the significance of the omen was obvious.
‘Such an enjoyable evening,’ exclaimed Susan Wyse as she climbed into her cockpit of sables for the three-minute walk to Starling Cottage. ‘Such excitement! Why, I confess that I was so carried away by the excitement of the card-play that the war slipped from my mind like a bad dream!’
‘I too was transported back to the long-dead past,’ agreed her husband. ‘I never thought to spend such a light-hearted and carefree evening again.’
‘Although Hitler has taken from us our food and our clothes, our loved ones and our tranquillity,’ declared Elizabeth (and all agreed that Mr. Churchill could not have said it more sonorously), ‘he cannot take from us the everlasting pleasures of friendship. Thank you, Lucia, for an enchanting evening. I shall treasure the memory of it always,’ she cooed, as she departed with a twinkling wave.
‘What happened?’ asked Georgie as he and Lucia stood on the threshold of Mallards contemplating the empty street.
‘Bridge, Georgie, Bridge. Because I suggested—purely a sounding-out, a testing of the waters, that we might do very well with a little less Bridge and a little more Poetry and Music, they have conspired together not to notice Elizabeth’s deceit. They have taken her side against me!’
‘I warned you,’ said Georgie softly, ‘but you wouldn’t listen.’
‘I know,’ said Lucia, ‘I should have. Well, there it is.’
They stood awhile and reflected on this stark reality, until Mr. Rice, the A.R.P. warden, passing by on his bicycle, became aware of light flooding the street from the open portal of Mallards.
‘Shut that blooming door!’ he roared. ‘Do you want the Germans to blow you to Kingdom Come, or what?’
Yes, decided Lucia, and shut the door.