Olga had of course been one out in her calculations since she had forgotten completely about Brabazon Lodge, with the result that they were nine for dinner, not eight.
They walked in procession down the road from the hotel two by two, Mr Lodge accompanying the Contessa, and d’Annunzio escorting Olga. Poppy was late, as usual.
The Vittoria (‘What an appropriate name,’ d’Annunzio said) had been transformed since her last appearance. She was decked out in bunting from stem to stern and the main deck had become a terrace for a drinks party, while the saloon was now a dining room, boasting a single table with a gleaming white cloth laid for nine people. The rather surly deckhands of the night before were now dressed in crisp, clean white sailor tops which Georgie found most fetching. Stewards in white mess jackets held trays of canapés and glasses.
‘Oh, Lucia,’ Georgie marvelled as they approached, ‘how marvellous everything looks. Aren’t you clever?’
‘Thank you dear,’ she said. ‘Actually the hotel did most of the work.’
‘Yes, but it was you who had the idea,’ Georgie replied, ‘and what a brilliant idea it was. Fancy! Dinner on a steamer in the middle of Lake Como.’
As they walked along the landing stage a crowd began to gather and some desultory applause broke out. Lucia knew that this was really directed at d’Annunzio, but contrived to look gracious anyway. There were some shouts, though they sounded good-natured.
‘What are they saying?’ Lucia asked Olga. ‘I find I have problems with this strange dialect they use up here in the lakes.’
‘They’re complaining that they didn’t know d’Annunzio would be here, so they couldn’t prepare a proper welcome for him,’ Olga explained. ‘He’s sympathising with them.’
Lucia considered.
‘Well, if we tell them we’ll be back at ten o’clock, they can be all ready and waiting.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Olga assured her, ‘he already has.’
‘Oh,’ murmured Georgie, rather thrilled. ‘Just fancy that! Perhaps they’ll get the town band out.’
‘They will,’ Olga said. ‘He’s just suggested it.’
‘Who is this guy, anyway?’ Brabazon Lodge demanded loudly of nobody in particular. ‘He sure thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers, doesn’t he? How much is he worth?’
Just for a moment Mr Wyse looked as though he had just caught a particularly nauseating waft of bad drains on a hot day.
‘It’s complicated, dear Mr Lodge,’ Lucia replied. ‘He seems to be all sorts of things. A writer, of course ...’
She looked to Georgie and Olga for help.
‘But he’s also by way of being a war hero,’ Georgie explained.
‘On land, at sea and in the air,’ Olga added.
‘And a politician, and a journalist, and a poet, and a novelist, and a speech-maker,’ Georgie rattled off, counting them on his fingers.
‘And he’s building a museum to himself,’ Olga volleyed across the net.
‘The nation demands it,’ came Georgie’s forehand return.
At this the two of them collapsed in giggles, and Lucia looked very disapproving.
‘Really, you two are like children sometimes,’ she said reprovingly.
‘Well, he just looks like a little guy with big ideas to me,’ Mr Lodge said, pitching his cigar butt rather savagely into the lake.
He glared at d’Annunzio. Lucia smiled apprehensively.
‘Oh, I rather thought you liked having big ideas in America?’ Georgie asked innocently.
Lucia sighed. Just possibly this might prove a rather difficult evening.
Since they were forced to wait for Poppy, the steamer remained tied up while they congregated on deck and drank champagne. As they did so, more and more townsfolk began congregating good-naturedly at the end of the landing stage. Many of the women had shawls over their heads and babies in their arms, or children holding on to their skirts.
‘My God, it’s a scene straight out of an opera,’ Georgie said.
‘Strange you should say that,’ Olga replied. ‘I could have sworn I just heard a tuning pipe.’
Somebody, presumably the local organist, choirmaster or both, stepped out to the front of the crowd, and a ragged note was hummed in unison and then died away. Clearly the crowd was about to indulge in a spontaneous display of patriotic fervour.
As the crowd struck up ‘Va, pensiero’, d’Annunzio strode to the prow of the vessel, put a clenched fist on each hip, and gazed sternly into the distance. Georgie closed his eyes so as not to spoil the moment, and felt tears beginning to run down his cheeks as they always did when he heard this piece. There was at least one genuine tenor in the crowd, and the top notes bounced back off the surrounding mountains, blending with the lapping of the water.
As the music died away, d’Annunzio dismissed the crowd with a lordly wave of the hand and they silently dispersed, looking once more for all the world like an opera chorus moving quietly offstage.
‘Say, what was that?’ Mr Lodge asked. ‘Their national anthem?’
‘No,’ Georgie told him, ‘though they all think it should be.’
‘They sang it at Caruso’s funeral,’ Olga said quietly.
‘Too bad it wasn’t written by anyone famous,’ Mr Lodge said. ‘I guess that’s what gets something chosen as a national anthem – like that Beethoven guy for Germany.’
Everyone looked startled. Only Amelia, characteristically and loudly, said ‘I think you mean Haydn,’ in a tone of some contempt. Lucia sighed again. Fortunately, just as Amelia drew breath to begin enlightening their American guest on the qualities of the composer of Nabucco, Lucia was able to say, ‘Oh look, there’s Poppy! Dear Poppy – the Duchess of Sheffield you know.’
Mr Wyse rose loyally to the occasion, fussing to the rail to say how well he remembered Her Grace and attempting with great courage, for he could guess only too well at the possible consequences, to stand on his sister’s foot.
It was not Her Grace’s custom to apologise for tardiness, nor, with the very marked exception only of members of the royal family and men with beards, to acknowledge the presence of other people in anything other than the most cursory manner. His Majesty the King, who suffered the grave misfortune of falling into both categories, had attempted at one stage to ban the Duchess from court owing to the effusiveness of her approaches.
Her greeting to Lucia, who of course fell into neither category, consisted of, ‘Yes, well, here we are again,’ to which Lucia naturally replied very loudly, ‘Dearest Poppy, how nice to see you again. How well I remember the last time you visited me in Tilling.’
Brushing aside Lucia’s attempted introductions, she waved a hand at the assembled company and said, ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ thus getting all the social niceties over in one job lot. Then, as an expectant silence fell she glanced around, said, ‘Yes, well, I thought I’d just pop over,’ accepted a glass of champagne from a steward, and then made a beeline for Georgie, who was attempting unsuccessfully to hide behind a deckhand, and seized him firmly by the arm.
‘Dear little man,’ she said, smiling happily. ‘Dear little beard.’
Back at the hotel, the Mapp-Flint party could hardly be counted a great success. Back in the old Riseholme days many people had tried painstakingly to recreate the elements of a wonderful romp which Olga had managed spontaneously to create, only for the evening to fall flat, for it was the very spontaneity of her romps, and the random set of ingredients this spontaneity threw together, which made them what they were. Having one or two chairs too few for a romp took on the most amusing quality, whereas deliberately removing one or two chairs from a dinner table before one’s guests arrived simply led to confusion, indigestion and lasting ill-feeling.
On this occasion Elizabeth had carefully contrived all the ingredients necessary for a successful party. But, unlike a fruitcake, one could not simply mix all the ingredients in their recommended proportions, bake them for the specified time, and be confident of removing a perfectly finished product from the oven at the end of the process. Mapp, perhaps ironically since she had been known to stoop to turning a rival’s oven up surreptitiously in a bid for victory in a baking contest, found herself in the sad position of having carefully measured out ingredients, mixed and baked them, only to be left with a rather sorry mess.
For one thing, very few people at the hotel knew each other. While they might have muttered the odd greeting when passing in the breakfast room (and usually deliberately in the wrong language) they had very sensibly never been tempted to push matters any further, since one never knew to what nameless social terrors careless casual conversation might lead.
For another, those few hardy souls who had recklessly pressed beyond the level of ‘Good morning’, perhaps to touch daringly upon the weather, had generally only done so with their own countrymen. It seemed sensible to treat the period since 1918 as a sort of extended Christmas Day truce, and, while the occasional game of football in no-man’s-land might be tolerated, such episodes of social intercourse were probably generally bad for morale overall. The German contingent, in particular, seemed to be taking a most unsporting view of the Versailles Treaty and contemplating the possibility of a rematch if only somebody would let them have their ball back.
Finally, almost nobody in the hotel knew her, and those few people who had met her, even briefly, had tended not to like what they saw. To be fair to Mapp, this happened also to chime with her own traditional view that a stranger was just an enemy she had never met. Throughout her life, which had been somewhat longer than she was prepared officially to admit, she had worked on the principle that disliking someone on sight was likely to prevent all sort of tiresome problems later. While this was a principle which had served her loyally and effectively over the years, it was not a quality normally to be found, or at least not openly displayed, in natural society hostesses, and the reader should therefore exercise some measure of compassion and understanding on learning that this was not a role in which she naturally excelled.
In brief, many people never turned up at all, taking the opportunity to leave the hotel for the evening and eat out in the town. Others put their heads into the room, looked round uncertainly and, on seeing Elizabeth essay what she fondly imagined to be a warm, welcoming smile in their direction, recoiled in horror. The third category stood in small groups resolutely speaking their own language very loudly, consumed a great deal of food and champagne as quickly as possible, and then left with a passing nod to their hostess. Ramesh attempted to rescue the situation, moving suavely between the groups and switching effortlessly between French, English and German, but by nine o’clock, with the room deserted, the band playing to an empty room, and vast quantities of food left uneaten, even Elizabeth was forced to admit defeat. The party had been an unmitigated disaster.
The Major had taken solace in the large amounts of alcohol on offer and had to be helped upstairs by Ramesh who, his obligations now fully discharged, changed out of his evening dress and went into town in search of unmarried Italian girls of a warm and giving disposition, a completely pointless yet occasionally enjoyable pursuit which has diverted many men over the ages, though frequently separating them from large amounts of money in the process.
As for Elizabeth, by nine-thirty she was unable to survey the wreckage of her evening with equanimity for any longer and went upstairs, intending to throw herself on the bed and weep for her shattered dreams. Sadly she found that position already occupied by her husband, whose tie, collar and shoes had been removed by the dutiful Ramesh and who was now snoring loudly, pitched diagonally across the bed. She glared at him balefully and retreated to the living room. However, she soon found that it was most unsatisfactory trying to have a really good emotional interlude in a non-horizontal attitude, and, more importantly, in total solitude with nobody available to witness her grief, sympathise, and perhaps seek to intervene or even participate, so in due course she gave it up as a bad job and wandered morosely into town.
Downstairs, the waiters gathered uncertainly in the deserted lounge. They looked to Giuseppe for guidance, who shrugged and gestured for them to begin clearing away. The staff would eat well tonight.
Lucia had also experienced a taxing evening, though her problems had been of a different nature and she had in general discharged them successfully. Brabazon Lodge, d’Annunzio and Amelia were a highly volatile mix, and several matches had been struck only to be deftly blown out before some explosion might ensue, these safety operations being largely conducted by Lucia, though ably assisted by Olga and Mr Wyse. Poppy at least said little and really was no trouble at all, so long as she could be seated next to Georgie (which, to his horror, she was), hold his hand under the table (which he had by now decided to be the lesser of two evils – at least this way he knew where the damned woman’s hand actually was), and be assured of a constant supply of black coffee and dressed crab.
Brabazon Lodge had wanted to speak of nothing other than money, usually in the context of large and impressive deals which he had successfully brought to a triumphant, and highly profitable, conclusion. His only fall-back position seemed to be to quiz people interminably and in intimate detail about their investments.
D’Annunzio of course wanted to talk about nothing other than d’Annunzio, though he did interrupt people impatiently to ask if they knew anybody on the Nobel Prize committee, or to denounce instantly and with derision any poet or novelist other than himself.
Amelia had no time for any of this and was prone to interject ‘Pah!’ or ‘Balderdash!’ into other people’s statements, and she seemed to have quite decided views on Italian politics which, while Lucia knew nothing of such matters, were clearly at variance with d’Annunzio’s. She was pro-Mussolini because he had made the trains run on time. D’Annunzio was anti-Mussolini because Mussolini had tried to kill him by throwing him out of a window. When this fact had been made clear, the party gathered around the dinner table in the saloon had fallen silent, clearly weighing the pros and cons of each position, and most siding mentally with Mussolini on the grounds of justifiable homicide.
It will thus be appreciated that Lucia’s task had been one of such complexity that most hostesses would have been inadequate to the challenge. Unlike Mapp, however, Lucia was a consummate hostess, and had passed the test with flying colours.
As the meal drew to a close, she caught Poppy’s eye. Her Grace was, however, reluctant to relinquish the trophy which she was clutching doggedly under the table, Georgie’s face having by this time acquired a fixed, glassy, white, mask-like quality.
Poppy struggled to remember Lucia’s name but failed dismally.
‘Yes, well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know about everybody else, but why don’t we all go on deck, instead of just the ladies retirin’?’
This was met by a general murmur of approval, as suggestions from duchesses normally are. Everybody dropped their napkins on the table and the ladies were gallantly shepherded out of the cabin, d’Annunzio and Mr Wyse rivalling each other magnificently in the exquisiteness of their bowing.
Arriving on deck they found they were already back in clear sight of the steamer quay, though chugging very slowly through the water. It was clear, even from this distance, that extensive preparations had been made to welcome them back. At least three times as many people as before had gathered (some had actually come from as far away as Como) and the electric lights of the bars and restaurants glinted on the instruments of a brass band. Even the saint from the church had put in an appearance, stoutly held aloft on a sort of decorated stretcher by various choirboys in surplices.
As the stewards served coffee and liqueurs, cigars and cigarettes were lit and a mood approaching a companionable calm finally settled upon the company. Lucia breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, she could relax.
‘It was so wonderful, wasn’t it, to hear that wonderful singing earlier?’ Lucia enquired generally. ‘How magnificent to hear people express such a real pride in their country.’
D’Annunzio shrugged modestly.
‘We are a great people,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the greatest of all. We trace our origins back to the Romans and, through their conquests and empire, to the Greeks, the Assyrians and the Egyptians.’
‘Today’s what counts, though, buddy,’ Mr Lodge said unhelpfully. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, it’s the United States that dominates the world today, not the Romans.’
‘America is a very powerful country,’ d’Annunzio acknowledged, ‘though of course culturally deficient. Where are your novelists, your poets, your composers, your painters?’
‘You never heard of Mark Twain?’ Mr Lodge asked incredulously.
‘No,’ d’Annunzio replied simply.
‘America and Italy were allies in the war, of course, gentlemen,’ Mr Wyse interjected, looking keenly at each of them in turn.
‘Yeah, I dare say,’ Mr Lodge said dubiously.
He and d’Annunzio gazed at each other and evidently decided to call it quits, much to everyone’s relief. However, the latter was not a man to let anyone have the last word.
‘Italy’s age of true greatness is yet to come,’ he declaimed, with the air of a prophetic announcement. ‘In the meantime, we will continue to claim our place on the world stage. We will be the major Mediterranean power. We will work through the League of Nations. We will claim colonies overseas. We will even work with our former enemies where this is possible.’
‘Bravo!’ cried Mr Wyse.
‘Bravo indeed,’ Lucia agreed warmly. ‘Why, it is so wonderful to hear that la bella Italia will act responsibly in world affairs. Long may she continue to be an ally of Great Britain – oh, and America too, of course, dear Mr Lodge.’
Strangely, this ringing endorsement did not bring forth the gracious response from d’Annunzio which Lucia had confidently been expecting.
‘And why, pray,’ he asked coldly, ‘might you think that Italy would not act responsibly?’
‘Oh, I’m sure Lucia didn’t mean that,’ Susan said hurriedly.
Lucia, however, was quite capable of clarifying her own statements.
‘Thank you, Susan dear, but I did,’ she said, smiling quizzically. ‘I intended it as a compliment.’
‘After all,’ she continued, her voice filling as if a sail catching a wind, ‘it was not always so. Just look at all those reckless fools who seized Fiume. They hardly had Italy’s best interest at heart, did they? Why, didn’t Italy end up declaring war on them? Quite right too! Hardly compatible with acting responsibly in world affairs, was it? Trying to tear up the Versailles Treaty that nice President Wilson worked so hard to put together.’
‘And Mr Lloyd George too, of course,’ she added reluctantly, for she was of course a Conservative.
As she looked around to make quite sure that her meaning had now been properly understood, she had the feeling that something was not quite right. Olga and Georgie were gazing at her with their mouths open. Mr and Mrs Wyse looked as though they were about to burst into tears. Amelia was smiling wickedly. D’Annunzio looked as though he was struggling to speak. Lucia wondered if he had a history of heart trouble.
For a very long few seconds nobody said anything at all. Then d’Annunzio turned on his heel, put his glass down, and walked very stiffly below decks.
‘Lucia!’ Georgie cried in aguish.
‘Oh, Lucia,’ Olga said sadly. ‘If only I’d realised that you didn’t know.’
‘What, pray?’ Lucia asked, the horrible realisation beginning to dawn that she had committed some fatal faux pas.
‘D’Annunzio led the expedition to Fiume,’ Amelia informed her with relish. ‘It was all his idea. And it wasn’t Italy that declared war on him, but the other way round.’
‘A perfectly understandable mistake to make,’ Mr Wyse ventured wretchedly. ‘Perhaps I could go and talk to him?’
‘Probably best if I do,’ Olga said, and slipped away.
‘I shall of course apologise, dear,’ Lucia called after her magnanimously.
By now they were getting dangerously close to the jetty. The band struck up a jaunty little tune which Amelia and the Wyses recognised as ‘Giovinezza’. As the tune progressed Olga completed her mission below decks.
‘No go, I’m afraid,’ she reported glumly. ‘He won’t come up. He doesn’t even want to speak to anybody.’
The band fell silent. On the quayside, Mapp had completed her slow, sad, progress from the hotel and was dully watching the approaching steamer as it drifted expertly towards its mooring position.
Then the cheering started. It was full-throated Italian cheering, and the noise was immense.
Suddenly, Lucia knew that the Elizabethan pageant in Riseholme, the tableaux vivants in Tilling, all the mayoral engagements, had been but mere preparation for this moment. She knew an instant of glittering clarity. This was her destiny, and she seized it with both hands. Calmly, serenely, and with Elizabeth Mapp-Flint watching, unseen, in horrified disbelief, Lucia stepped forward, raised her hands, and started acknowledging, gracefully but sincerely, the cheers of the assembled multitude, cheers which rang again and again around the lake, cheers for her, for her, for her.
Olga bravely volunteered to stay behind and, together with the crew, gradually coax d’Annunzio first out of the foetal position, and then out of the saloon. She spoke quickly to the captain, who explained to the intrigued townsfolk that the English lady was a great friend of Italy, whom d’Annunzio had wished them to honour in his place. Hearing this, they pursued Lucia and her party to the very gates of the hotel, cheering them all the way, Lucia turning every few steps to wave anew and beg them, ineffectually thank goodness, to desist.
They really did look in on Mapp’s party, but of course they found only an empty room, the band departed, and only the ice carvings remaining, now largely melted and dripping forlornly. It was if a great civilisation had once lived here, but long since vanished.
With that, they dispersed. Georgie went in search of Francesco and a Negroni, his nerves completely gone to pieces after his experience with Poppy, to say nothing of the dramatic denouement of the party.
Lucia went in search of her maid, removed her make-up, applied her night cream and went to bed, but sleep, unsurprisingly, eluded her.
She switched on the light and reached for her book from the bedside cabinet, only to realise that she had left it on the table in the living room. She put on her dressing gown and crept out to retrieve it. A strip of light showed underneath Georgie’s door, and as she picked up her book she clearly heard Francesco’s voice.
‘Dear Georgie,’ he was saying, ‘you have been so very kind to me, that I hope you will allow me to show you my appreciation in return.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you,’ came Georgie’s rather muffled voice, ‘but just being with you is reward enough – privilege enough, really, I should say.’
‘You are a shameless flatterer,’ Francesco said playfully, ‘but it’s no good. My mind is quite made up. I am going to do something very special for you.’
‘Shall I like it?’ Georgie asked dubiously.
‘Oh, yes,’ Francesco assured him. ‘Trust me.’
‘Very well then,’ Georgie said nervously. ‘If you’re sure.’
Lucia froze, and then tiptoed back into her bedroom.