‘I was most surprised to find that man still ministering to you, Georgie, after I have taken so many occasions to convey my views to you,’ Lucia said severely. ‘I am sorry to have to broach the subject so directly, my dear, but you seem suddenly impervious to subtler methods.’
‘Not at all, Lucia,’ Georgie replied, trying to sound unperturbed. ‘I do understand your feelings on this matter, but I wish to exercise my own judgement. Surely that is not too much to ask?’
‘Judgement?’ Lucia’s voce rose perceptibly both in pitch and volume. ‘I am sorry to say, Georgie, that you appear to have exercised no judgement at all on this matter. You have allowed him to become altogether too familiar, to try to turn you into a drug addict, to encourage you in the most lascivious of painting styles, and generally to exercise a very malevolent influence over you.’
‘Nonetheless, Lucia, he is my valet, not yours,’ came the firm reply, ‘and I must ask that you allow me to decide what is best.’
‘May I remind you, caro mio, that I am in charge of all domestic matters, including disposing of the servants?’ Lucia riposted. ‘Really, I thought that was well understood, Georgie. After all, it is what happens in any normal household.’
‘Yes, but this isn’t the household, is it?’ Georgie challenged her, feeling that he was being quite clever. ‘We’re away on holiday.’
‘Don’t quibble, dear,’ Lucia admonished him. ‘Anyway, it won’t do any good. My mind is quite made up on the subject.’
‘Then you can just unmake it again,’ Georgie flashed back.
There was no response to this, Lucia simply gazing at him implacably. He decided that a different approach was needed.
‘Look, my dear,’ he said more amenably, ‘there are aspects of this situation of which you are unaware. Let me assure you that if you did know them then you would exercise a little more understanding and compassion.’
‘What sort of “aspects”, pray?’
‘Well, that’s really rather difficult to explain without giving everything away,’ Georgie said awkwardly. ‘You see, Francesco and I have a secret which I have promised to respect.’
‘Surely you can at least hint?’ Lucia asked icily. ‘After all, I am your wife, Georgie. I always thought that we were not supposed to have secrets from each other.’
‘Oh, this is so difficult,’ said Georgie wretchedly.
Lucia continued to stare at him quizzically.
‘Well,’ he ventured at length, ‘let’s just say that our relationship, Francesco’s and mine that is, is not exactly as it might appear on the surface. There, now can we please leave it at that? This really is all most tarsome.’
Flustered, he produced his handkerchief and mopped his brow.
‘I think I understand all too well, my dear,’ Lucia said kindly. ‘How little you know of the ways of the world. Why, you forget that I have spent some considerable time in London society. Come and sit by me and let me explain.’
Georgie settled himself next to her on the sofa, and she almost went so far as to take his hand.
‘You see, my dear, Francesco is not unique. On the contrary, the quality holiday destinations of Europe are filled with Francescos. They are all men of a certain sort, good-looking, charming, who prey upon the weaknesses of travellers to worm their way into their affections in the hope of financial gain. Perhaps some valuable gifts, perhaps even an offer of permanent employment as a personal servant. In the case of some vulnerable ladies even marriage may be suggested.’
‘Weaknesses?’ Georgie asked in some confusion. ‘What weaknesses?’
‘In your case, my dear, let’s just say an over-generous nature and leave it at that, shall we?’ Lucia said briskly. ‘You were seen, you know, wandering arm in arm with him. That’s hardly ... appropriate, is it?’
‘Oh, Lucia, you just don’t understand,’ Georgie maintained. ‘Now please just leave it alone, or you’ll spoil everything. Francesco needs me, and I have promised to help him.’
‘Ah-hah!’ Lucia exclaimed triumphantly.
‘There’s no “ah-hah” about it,’ he retorted impatiently. ‘Just leave it, that’s all. You promised to obey me when we got married, Lucia, and I’ve never asked you to do it before, but I ask you now. Leave it. Be pleasant to Francesco, for my sake at least.’
Lucia gave a twisted little smile.
‘As it happens, Georgie, I am unable to obey you,’ she said sweetly, and then, her voice becoming decidedly Elizabethan, ‘though I think it most ill that you should seek to employ such a crude attempt to impose your will upon me.’
‘What do you mean, “unable”?’
‘Because Francesco is no longer in your employ, Georgie,’ she answered with a little toss of her head.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said foolishly.
‘That man is no longer in your employ, my dear, because I fired him about an hour ago. It gave me great pleasure to tell him exactly what I thought of him, as well. I made it very clear to him that I was astute enough to know when a perfumed, brilliantined Lothario was trying to worm his way into a gentleman’s affections.’
‘What?’ gasped Georgie in horror.
‘Let me tell you what your precious Francesco said then, Georgie,’ Lucia pressed on, well aware that she was twisting the knife in the wound. ‘He just smiled and asked me if I was jealous.’
Georgie was beyond speech. He just gaped. He felt a hot flush on his face.
‘At which point,’ said Lucia with satisfaction, ‘I slapped his face, very hard I may add, and told him to leave at once. Without a reference, naturally.’
She stood up.
‘Now then, caro mio, let us forget this whole unpleasant episode ever happened and go back to enjoying ourselves. You will though, I trust, remember what a narrow escape you have had.’
She gazed at him evenly and then turned to leave the room.
‘You might even,’ came her parting shot, ‘consider apologising for having doubted my suspicions.’
At this Georgie could stand no more.
‘You stupid woman!’ he positively shouted.
Shocked, she spun on her heel. Hot with rage, he seized her arm and threw her back on to the sofa. She opened her mouth, but no words would come out. Quivering with anger for the first and only time in his life, he knelt down and thrust his contorted face very close to hers.
‘That man,’ he hissed furiously, ‘is King Zog of Albania.’
Miss Flowers had slipped away from Frau Zirchner while she was having her afternoon nap and was sitting with Major Benjy in a fairly remote corner of the gardens, screened from the hotel by a hedge and some beds of rhododendrons. She was smoking a cigarette and sitting on a low wall, her legs crossed.
‘So you managed to escape from the old girl?’ the Major commented, taking a drag on his own cigarette. ‘Sorry she gave you a hard time yesterday.’
‘No worse than the one your wife gave you, by all accounts,’ she replied. ‘I could hear her shouting from the other side of the hotel. Apparently the staff were worried that someone was being murdered.’
‘Ah,’ said the Major uncomfortably. ‘No, not quite.’
There was a pause which he felt obliged to fill.
‘But, it has to be said,’ he continued reflectively, ‘that she is a woman of most decided opinions.’
‘Dear Major,’ Miss Flowers cooed, ‘it does you great credit that you continue to take her with you as you travel around the world. Why, many men would simply leave her at home while they go off with more enjoyable company.’
‘Do you know,’ he said wonderingly, ‘I never thought of that.’
‘Really? I am surprised. Why, there was a charming gentleman I met with Frau Zirchner while we were in Monte Carlo who claimed never to see his wife from one Christmas to the next.’
‘By Jove!’ the Major exclaimed, suddenly seized by an intriguing possibility. ‘What a lark!’
‘Not sure I’d get away with it, though,’ he went on after a pause for thought. ‘She can be a bit difficult about a chap going off to have fun on his own, you know.’
Miss Flowers raised her eyebrows.
‘Really? How very unreasonable.’
‘Yes,’ he said, as if struck by the realisation for the first time. ‘It is jolly well unreasonable, isn’t it?’
As they both drew on their cigarettes, a light breeze blew at the hem of her dress, tugging it upwards. The Major derived new eloquence from the sight.
‘Fact is,’ he confided, ‘I think the old girl’s a bit touched, what? Not right in the head, I mean. Always likely to fly off the handle about nothing at all. Apparently her mother was the same. Hit her husband with a teapot once, they say. Runs in the family, I suppose.’
‘Poor Major!’ Miss Flowers said, clearly deeply touched. ‘Do you mean that you bring this woman to live at your splendid house at Tilling, spend huge amounts of money taking her around the world with you, and this is how she repays you, with scorn and derision?’
The Major contrived to look both unfortunate and noble at the same time. Miss Flowers reached out and patted his hand sympathetically.
‘Do tell me more about your house, Major. How very nice Tilling sounds.’
‘Well,’ he said, trying to choose the right words, ‘it’s not actually my house at all, strictly speaking.’
‘I do understand,’ she said soothingly. ‘Doubtless you have it owned by a family trust to keep it out of the hands of your wife, should the unthinkable happen and you have to confine the poor woman in a mental hospital. Permanently, I mean. I’m sure she’s in and out of them all the time, from what you say.’
‘Good God, yes. Damned expensive it is too. Spend a fortune on flowers and grapes whenever I have to go to visit.’
The Major caught a glimpse of an alternative future, and fell in love with it instantly. He wondered just how a chap went about having his wife committed. He dimly remembered that it needed the signature of two doctors. There was old Smithers at the golf club, for one. Surely he would do a favour for an old friend? Then there was that old fool who had put ‘drowning’ as the cause of death on Captain Puffin’s death certificate just because he had fallen forward into a plate of soup after suffering a heart attack. Yes, surely something might be done ...
Miss Flowers leant forward, her earnest blue eyes making a deep impression.
‘Of course, it would be as well to check the terms of the trust just to make absolutely sure,’ she said.
‘Oh, quite,’ he agreed instantly. ‘Jolly sensible, what?’
‘Perhaps,’ she proffered, ‘we might meet in London one weekend and go through the trust deed together. Naturally, it would entail staying in a hotel.’
‘Naturally,’ he agreed enthusiastically.
‘And to avoid any possible embarrassment,’ she went on smoothly, ‘it might be best if you stayed at your club. We could meet for lunch somewhere on Sunday, and you could bring the trust deed with you.’
‘Ah,’ he said, brought up short by this idea. ‘I don’t actually have a club.’
Again her eyes widened.
‘I did have, of course,’ he assured her hurriedly. ‘The Empire Club in Calcutta. Used to go there quite a bit for a while, until there was a spot of unpleasantness.’
‘Unpleasantness? What sort of unpleasantness?’
‘Oh,’ he waved his hand dismissively, ‘some damn fool of a tea planter said I’d upset his wife or something. Threatened to horsewhip me on the front steps, if you please.’
‘Oh, my word!’
She covered her mouth with her hand, the picture of concern.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said soothingly. ‘I think Benjamin Flint knows how to take care of a tea planter.’
In fact he had taken care of the planter by arranging himself an urgent posting to Ranaghat, but his mien convincingly suggested a more heroic outcome.
‘Thing is, though,’ he said, conscious that this conversation was in danger of running rapidly out of control, ‘there is no trust, actually.’
‘No trust? Then who owns the house?’
‘Well, stupid I know,’ replied the Major, looking sheepish, ‘but I put it in the wife’s name when we got married. Seemed the thing to do, somehow.’
‘Oh dear,’ Miss Flowers said sharply and then, softening, ‘but what a warm, generous spirit it shows, Major.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ he concurred. ‘Over-generous, perhaps, do you think?’
‘Definitely over-generous,’ she said decidedly. ‘But at least you have your capital, Major. That at least is beyond her reach.’
‘Ah, yes, of course,’ he said, though come to think of it, he wasn’t too sure. His post office savings book was behind the clock in the living room.
‘And you certainly know how to spend it,’ she said coyly, clasping her hands around her knee and (surely inadvertently) lifting it higher in the process. ‘Why, just look at that magnificent car.’
‘Ah,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘not mine actually, just borrowing it from a friend.’
‘A very generous friend, surely, Major? My, you must move in exalted circles.’
‘A maharajah, actually,’ he confided proudly. ‘Saved the chap’s father out in India, don’t you know.’
He eagerly embarked on the most heavily embellished version of his tiger story, but Miss Flowers’ attention seemed unequal to the task.
‘Very interesting,’ she cut in as he paused for breath just at the dramatic moment when three ravenous tigers were gazing hungrily at the old maharajah while Major Flint stood between them armed only with his swagger stick and a fountain pen, ‘but I do hope, Major, that you are looking after your capital sensibly?’
‘Eh?’ he said, still wondering exactly how he was going to extricate himself from his predicament with the tigers.
‘Though of course there must be a great deal of it,’ she went on, reassured. ‘Do pardon me, Major, I don’t wish to pry and of course it’s none of my business, but after all, this is not a cheap hotel, and you are occupying one of the best suites ...’
He thought rapidly about whether this topic had come up in conversation before, perhaps while his attention had been temporarily distracted in the car. Tricky blighters, women, it was just the sort of thing they might pull, to try to catch a chap out.
‘Oh, I thought we’d been through that,’ he said airily. ‘Matter of fact the maharajah’s paying. Sort of present, you might say. Sort of belated thank-you, I dare say, for saving his father’s life. Now, that reminds me ...’
He brought his tiger story to a triumphant, though highly unconvincing, conclusion, and became aware that somewhere along the way Miss Flowers had uncrossed her legs and was now sitting with her hands in her lap gazing into the distance in a somewhat distracted fashion.
‘Tell me,’ she said when it became apparent that he had finished making tiger noises and flourishing a twig which was doing duty for his trusty fountain pen. ‘This maharajah of yours. I suppose he is fabulously wealthy?’
‘Oh yes, rich as Croesus,’ he assured her. ‘One of the richest men in the world, I hear tell.’
‘I see,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Thank you, Major, but I fear I must go in now. A sudden breeze seems to have sprung up.’
As she stood up he cast around desperately for a new approach.
‘Of course, if my wife were to die,’ he said, ‘then there’d be no problem, would there? I mean, the house would come to me, yes, and everything else too.’
She paused and looked back.
‘Is that likely?’ she asked. ‘She strikes me as a very robust woman, physically at least. Certainly there is nothing wrong with her lungs. Has she been in poor health?’
‘No,’ he said regretfully and then, his mind running rapidly over the contents of the garden shed at Glebe, ‘but anything’s possible, what?’
Lucia was still ashen-faced with shock and disbelief.
‘You see,’ Georgie was explaining, ‘his life was in danger from the Greeks, or the Serbs, or the Croats, or somebody, I can’t quite remember which, the Italian government told him so.’
‘And how did they know?’ asked Lucia, more for the sake of something to say than anything else.
‘Oh, intercepted letters, spies, that sort of thing, you know,’ he replied airily, as one who was newly au fait with the ways of the world’s intelligence agencies.
‘Anyhow, he asked them for their protection, but they said they couldn’t guarantee keeping him safe in Albania just at the moment, but suggested he hide incognito in Italy for a bit while things calmed down back at home.’
‘But why a valet? And why here?’
Georgie shrugged.
‘Why not? Actually, I think it was simply brilliant. Who would possibly think of a valet as a king in disguise? And anyway, Bellagio’s hardly Rome or Milan. He thought it was unlikely he would see anyone who might recognise him, but he was jolly careful anyway. That’s why he made some flimsy excuse not to risk being seen by d’Annunzio. The two of them fell out over Fiume, and d’Annunzio was bound to remember him.’
‘But why on earth, Georgie,’ Lucia asked, some of her customary asperity returning, ‘didn’t you tell me about all this? Really, I can only assume that you didn’t trust me.’
‘Of course I trust you,’ he replied firmly, ‘but he expressly asked me not to tell a living soul, including you. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know myself until quite recently. He only told me a couple of days ago.’
Lucia was silent.
‘Just think,’ Georgie marvelled, ‘me being waited on by a king! And how exciting to think of assassins lurking in the bushes – do you know he has a revolver with him, just in case?’
‘It will make a fine story, certainly,’ Lucia conceded. ‘It certainly trumps the Mapp-Flints’ maharajah.’
‘Yes, doesn’t it?’ Georgie said happily. ‘Actually, we’ve become very good friends. I’ve invited him to come to Mallards next summer. Of course, that might be a little difficult now that you’ve slapped his face and accused him of being a gigolo.’
‘Yes, thank you, Georgie,’ Lucia answered sharply. ‘I am well aware of the dreadful situation in which you have placed me.’
‘I?’ he queried, some of his hot blood returning. ‘I have done nothing, Lucia. If only you had trusted me to know what I was doing then none of this would have happened, and the King and I could still be friends.’
‘The fact remains, Georgie,’ she said calmly, trying to be reasonable, ‘that if you had trusted me then the whole unfortunate scene could have been avoided in the first place.’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ he exclaimed in exasperation. ‘I’ve already explained all that. Why can’t you just admit for once that you’ve been wrong?’
‘Georgie!’ Lucia flinched and gasped as though she had just had her face slapped.
She waited for him to say something, but nothing more was forthcoming. She came to a decision, stood up, and moved over to the door to her room.
‘I find, Georgie dear, that my financial affairs compel me to return to London to consult with dear Mr Mammoncash,’ she said tightly. ‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to ring for my maid to help me pack?’
Georgie felt hot, peppery breath in his throat and, resisting a strong urge to say ‘Oh, don’t be so silly’ again, said ‘Sartenly’ as calmly as he could, and pressed the bell push.
‘Thank you, dear,’ she said calmly.
‘Naturally you won’t require me to accompany you?’ he enquired. ‘After all, my financial affairs are less complex and rather more exiguous than your own.’
She made one of those little noises intended to express extreme disappointment masked by polite resignation. ‘Naturally,’ she echoed.
At the door she turned.
‘You might perhaps do me one small favour, Georgie. I shall be drafting a telegram to Mammoncash before I leave, instructing him to sell all my holdings so that I can avail myself of Mr Lodge’s kind proposal. Perhaps you will be kind enough to see that it is sent after I leave.’
‘You know my views on that,’ Georgie said stiffly.
‘Yes, Georgie, I do,’ she replied, equally stiffly, ‘but surely you will trust me to know what I am doing.’
With this Parthian shot she left the room, and Georgie, feeling just for once like Major Benjy, went in search of Olga and a Negroni, though not necessarily in that order.
In the lounge, the Mapp-Flints had parked themselves on a sofa next to the Wyses’ party, so that the latter could not easily leave the scene without appearing rude. Actually, Amelia would have had no great problem with such an appearance, as Mr Wyse well knew. He darted a hopeful meaningful glance at her, but his influence over his sister, never strong, had been completely punctured forever by the unforgiving touch of fire tongs on twelve year-old flesh.
‘Excellent party, Elizabeth,’ Susan was saying. ‘Everyone is talking about it.’
‘Indeed!’ Mr Wyse concurred, with a little bow. ‘Why, it must rank as the grandest affair the hotel has ever seen. Delightful! Charming!’
Amelia grunted and Susan, sensing that her sister-in-law might say something less than gracious, cut in to explain that they had decided to leave in the morning to return to Tilling.
‘But why?’ Elizabeth cried in dismay.
‘The cholera,’ My Wyse answered blandly. ‘There is talk of it now in both Tuscany and the Romagna. It is clearly moving north, and we feel that one cannot be too careful.’
‘Quinine,’ the Major suddenly interjected. ‘Quinine and lots of gin. That’s the stuff. Keep you right as rain as long as you take it regularly.’
‘Capital advice, Major,’ acknowledged Mr Wyse with a bow. ‘For myself I would be quite prepared to take it and stay, but I do have responsibility for both these ladies.’
Amelia grunted again and shifted her monocle.
‘Some damn fool fisherman,’ she growled.
‘Well, we shall stay,’ Elizabeth announced decidedly.
‘Absolutely,’ the Major concurred, catching sight of Miss Flowers coming into the lounge with Frau Zirchner. ‘Having such a wonderful time, what?’
‘Anyway,’ Elizabeth said, beaming determinedly to make it clear that she had not noticed Miss Flowers and that even if she had it was tout égout to her, ‘we have an obligation to stay. We promised His Highness we would remain here with Ramesh until he arrives to join us.’
‘Absolutely,’ the Major said again, shifting in his seat so as to present what he fondly believed was his best profile to Miss Flowers should she happen to glance in his direction, ‘and that’s not likely to be for weeks yet.’
He smiled contentedly, looking forward to an unlimited bar tab, and discreet discussions with Miss Flowers about their future living arrangements, stretching uninterrupted into the future.
At this point Ramesh arrived and politely made his bow to the assembled company. So touched was Mr Wyse by such delicacy of manners that he rose to return it, murmuring, ‘Delighted.’
‘What’s that you’ve got there, old boy?’ asked the Major, indicating a brown envelope in Ramesh’s hand.
‘It’s a telegram from the pater,’ Ramesh explained.
‘And how is the maharajah?’ Elizabeth asked, smiling broadly.
‘You will soon have a chance to ask him that yourself, dear madam,’ Ramesh replied. ‘It says here that he’s arriving tomorrow morning.’