Since then Miss Mapp had been very busy with the conversion of the marvellous crop of apples, plums and redcurrants in Diva’s garden into jam and jelly. Her cook could not tackle so big a job alone, and she herself spent hours a day in the kitchen, and the most delicious odours of boiling preserves were wafted out of the windows into the High Street. It could not be supposed that they would escape Diva’s sharp nose, and there had been words about it. But garden-produce (Miss Mapp believed) meant what it said, or would dear Diva prefer that she let the crop rot on the trees, and be a portion for wasps. Diva acknowledged that she would. And when the fruit was finished Miss Mapp proposed to turn her attention to the vegetable marrows, which, with a little ginger, made a very useful preserve for the household. She would leave a dozen of these pots for Diva.
But the jam-making was over now and Miss Mapp was glad of that, for she had scalded her thumb: quite a blister. She was even gladder that the Art Exhibition was over. All the important works of the Tilling school (except the pastel of the King of Italy) remained in Tilling, she had made her propitiatory sacrifice about Georgie’s sketch of the Landgate, and she had no reason to suppose that Lucia had ever repented of that moment of superb magnanimity in the garden-room, which had averted an exposure of which she still occasionally trembled to think. Lucia could not go back on that now, it was all over and done with like the jam-making (though, like the jam-making, it had left a certain seared and sensitive place behind) and having held her tongue then, Lucia could not blab afterwards. Like the banns in church, she must for ever hold her peace. Miss Mapp had been deeply grateful for that clemency at the time, but no one could go on being grateful indefinitely. You were grateful until you had paid your debt of gratitude, and then you were free. She would certainly be grateful again, when this month was over and Lucia and Georgie left Tilling, never, she hoped, to return, but for the last week or two she had felt that she had discharged in full every groat of gratitude she owed Lucia, and her mind had been busier than usual over plots and plans and libels and inductions with regard to her tenant who, with those cheese-paring ways so justly abhorred by Miss Mapp, had knocked down the rent to twelve guineas a week and grabbed the tomatoes.
But Miss Mapp did not yet despair of dealing Lucia some nasty blow, for the fact of the matter was (she felt sure of it) that Tilling generally was growing a little restive under Lucia’s autocratic ways. She had been taking them in hand, she had been patronizing them, which Tilling never could stand, she had been giving them treats, just like that! She had sent out cards for an evening party (not dinner at all) with ‘un po’ di musica’ written in the left-hand corner. Even Mr Wyse, that notorious sycophant, had raised his eyebrows over this, and had allowed that this was rather an unusual inscription: ‘musica’ (he thought) would have been more ordinary, and he would ask Amelia when she came. That had confirmed a secret suspicion which Miss Mapp had long entertained that Lucia’s Italian (and, of course, Georgie’s too) was really confined to such words as ‘ecco’ and ‘bon giorno’ and ‘bello’ and she was earnestly hoping that Amelia would come before October was over, and they would all see what these great talks in Italian to which Mr Wyse was so looking forward, would amount to.
And what an evening that ‘po-di-mu’ (as it was already referred to with faint little smiles) had been! It was a wet night and in obedience to her command (for at that time Lucia was at the height of the ascendancy she had acquired at the hospital fête), they had all put mackintoshes over their evening clothes, and galoshes over their evening shoes, and slopped up to Mallards through the pouring rain. A couple of journeys of Lucia’s car could have brought them all in comfort and dryness, but she had not offered so obvious a convenience. Mrs Wyse’s Royce was being overhauled, so they had to walk too, and a bedraggled and discontented company had assembled. They had gone into the garden-room dripped on by the wistaria, and an interminable po-di-mu ensued. Lucia turned off all the lights in the room except one on the piano, so that they saw her profile against a black background, like the head on a postage stamp, and first she played the slow movement out of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. She stopped once, just after she had begun, because Diva coughed, and when she had finished there was a long silence. Lucia sighed and Georgie sighed, and everyone said ‘Thank you’ simultaneously. Major Benjy said he was devoted to Chopin and Lucia playfully told him that she would take his musical education in hand.
Then she had allowed the lights to be turned up again, and there was a few minutes’ pause to enable them to conquer the poignancy of emotion aroused by that exquisite rendering of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, to disinfect it so to speak with cigarettes, or drown it, as Major Benjy did, in rapid whiskies and sodas, and when they felt braver the po-di-mu began again, with a duet, between her and Georgie, of innumerable movements by Mozart, who must indeed have been a most prolific composer if he wrote all that. Diva fell quietly asleep, and presently there were indications that she would soon be noisily asleep. Miss Mapp hoped that she would begin to snore properly, for that would be a good set-down for Lucia, but Major Benjy poked her stealthily on the knee to rouse her. Mr Wyse began to stifle yawns, though he sat as upright as ever, with his eyes fixed rather glassily on the ceiling, and ejaculated ‘Charming’ at the end of every movement. When it was all over there were some faintly murmured requests that Lucia would play to them again, and without any further pressing, she sat down. Her obtuseness was really astounding.
‘How you all work me!’ she said. ‘A fugue by Bach then, if you insist on it, and if Georgie will promise not to scold me if I break down.’
Luckily amid suppressed sighs of relief, she did break down, and though she was still perfectly willing to try again, there was a general chorus of unwillingness to take advantage of her great good nature, and after a wretched supper, consisting largely of tomato-salad, they trooped out into the rain, cheered by the promise of another musical evening next week when she would have that beautiful fugue by heart.
It was not the next week but the same week that they had all been bidden to a further evening of harmony, and symptoms of revolt, skilfully fomented by Miss Mapp, were observable. She had just received her note of invitation one morning, when Diva trundled in to Wasters.
‘Another po-di-mu already, said she sarcastically. ‘What are you –’
‘Isn’t it unfortunate?’ interrupted Elizabeth, ‘for I hope, dear Diva, you have not forgotten that you promised to come in that very night – Thursday, isn’t it – and play piquet with me.’
Diva returned Elizabeth’s elaborate wink. ‘So I did,’ she said. ‘Anyhow, I do.’
‘Consequently we shall have to refuse dear Lucia’s invitation,’ said Elizabeth regretfully. ‘Lovely, wasn’t it, the other night? And so many movements of Mozart. I began to think he must have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, and that we should be stuck there till Doomsday.’
Diva was fidgeting about the room in her restless manner. (‘Rather like a spinning top,’ thought Miss Mapp, ‘bumping into everything. I wish it would die.’)
‘I don’t think she plays bridge very well,’ said Diva. ‘She began, you know, by saying she was so anxious to learn, and that we all played marvellously, but now she lays down the law like anything, telling us what we ought to have declared, and how we ought to have played. It’s quite like –’
She was going to say ‘It’s quite like playing with you,’ but luckily stopped in time.
‘I haven’t had the privilege of playing with her. Evidently I’m not up to her form,’ said Elizabeth, ‘but I hear, only report, mind, that she doesn’t know the elements of the game.’
‘Well, not much more, said Diva. ‘And she says she will start a bridge class if we like.’
‘She spoils us! And who will the pupils be?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘I know one who won’t,’ said Diva darkly.
‘And one and one make two,’ observed Elizabeth. ‘A pity that she sets herself up like that. Saying the other night t
hat she would take Major Benjy’s musical education in hand! I always thought education began at home, and I’m sure I never heard so many wrong notes in my life.’
Diva ruminated a moment, and began spinning again. ‘She offered to take the choir-practices in church, only the Padre wouldn’t hear of it,’ she said. ‘And there’s talk of a class to read Homer in Pope’s translation.’
‘She has every accomplishment,’ said Elizabeth, ‘including push.’
Diva bumped into another topic.
‘I met Mr Wyse just now,’ she said. ‘Countess Amelia Faraglione is coming to-morrow.’
Miss Mapp sprang up.
‘Not really?’ she cried. ‘Why, she’ll be here for Lucia’s po-di-mu on Thursday. And the Wyses will be going, that’s certain, and they are sure to ask if they may bring the Faradidleone with them. Diva, dear, we must have our piquet another night. I wouldn’t miss that for anything.’
‘Why?’ asked Diva.
‘Just think what will happen! She’ll be forced to talk Italian, for Mr Wyse has often said what a treat it will be to hear them talk it together, and I’m sure Lucia doesn’t know any. I must be there.’
‘But if she does know it, it will be rather a sell,’ said Diva. ‘We shall have gone there for nothing except to hear all that Mozart over again and to eat tomatoes. I had heart-burn half the night afterwards.’
‘Trust me, Diva,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I swear she doesn’t know any Italian. And how on earth will she be able to wriggle out of talking it? With all her ingeniousness, it can’t be done. She can’t help being exposed.’
‘Well, that would be rather amusing,’ said Diva. ‘Being put down a peg or two certainly wouldn’t hurt her. All right. I’ll say I’ll come.’
Miss Mapp’s policy was now of course the exact reverse of what she had first planned. Instead of scheming to get all Tilling to refuse Lucia’s invitation to listen to another po-di-mu, her object was to encourage everyone to go, in order that they might listen not so much to Mozart as to her rich silences or faltering replies when challenged to converse in the Italian language. She found that the Padre and Mrs Bartlett had hurriedly arranged a choir-practice and a meeting of the girl-guides respectively to take place at the unusual hour of half-past nine in the evening in order to be able to decline the po-di-mu, but Elizabeth, throwing economy to the winds, asked them both to dine with her on the fatal night, and come on to Lucia’s delicious music afterwards. This added inducement prevailed, and off they scurried to tell choir-boys and girl-guides that the meetings were cancelled and would be held at the usual hour the day after. The curate needed no persuasion, for he thought that Lucia had a wonderful touch on the piano, and was already looking forward to more; Irene similarly had developed a violent schwärm for Lucia and had accepted, so that Tilling, thanks to Elizabeth’s friendly offices, would now muster in force to hear Lucia play duets and fugues and not speak Italian. And when, in casual conversation with Mr Wyse, Elizabeth learned that he had (as she had anticipated) ventured to ask Lucia if she would excuse the presumption of one of her greatest admirers, and allow him to bring his sister Amelia to her soirée and that Lucia had sent him her most cordial permission to do so, it seemed that nothing could stand in the way of the fulfilment of Elizabeth’s romantic revenge on that upstart visitor for presuming to set herself up as Queen of the social life of Tilling.
It was, as need hardly be explained, this aspect of the affair which so strongly appealed to the sporting instincts of the place. Miss Mapp had long been considered by others as well as herself the first social citizen of Tilling, and though she had often been obliged to fight desperately for her position, and had suffered from time to time manifold reverses, she had managed to maintain it, because there was no one else of so commanding and unscrupulous a character. Then, this alien from Riseholme had appeared and had not so much challenged her as just taken her sceptre and her crown and worn them now for a couple of months. At present all attempts to recapture them had failed, but Lucia had grown a little arrogant, she had offered to take choir-practice, she had issued her invitations (so thought Tilling) rather as if they had been commands, and Tilling would not have been sorry to see her suffer some set-back. Nobody wanted to turn out in the evening to hear her play Mozart (except the curate), no one intended to listen to her read Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad, or to be instructed how to play bridge, and though Miss Mapp was no favourite, they would have liked to see her score. But there was little partisanship; it was the sporting instinct which looked forward to witnessing an engagement between two well-equipped Queens, and seeing whether one really could speak Italian or not, even if they had to listen to all the fugues of Bach first. Everyone, finally, except Miss Mapp, wherever their private sympathies might lie, regretted that now in less than a month, Lucia would have gone back to her own kingdom of Riseholme, where it appeared she had no rival of any sort, for these encounters were highly stimulating to students of human nature and haters of Miss Mapp. Never before had Tilling known so exciting a season.
On this mellow morning, then, of October, Lucia, after practising her fugue for the coming po-di-mu, and observing Coplen bring into the house a wonderful supply of tomatoes, had received that appalling note from Mr Wyse, conveyed by the Royce, asking if he might bring Contessa Amelia di Faraglione to the musical party to which he so much looked forward. The gravity of the issue was instantly clear to Lucia, for Mr Wyse had made no secret about the pleasure it would give him to hear his sister and herself mellifluously converse in the Italian tongue, but without hesitation she sent back a note by the chauffeur and the Royce, that she would be charmed to see the Contessa. There was no getting out of that, and she must accept the inevitable before proceeding irresistibly to deal with it. From the window she observed the Royce backing and advancing and backing till it managed to turn and went round the corner to Porpoise Street.
Lucia closed the piano, for she had more cosmic concerns to think about than the fingerings of a fugue. Her party of course (that required no consideration) would have to be cancelled, but that was only one point in the problem that confronted her. For that baleful bilinguist the Contessa di Faraglione was not coming to Tilling (all the way from Italy) for one night but she was to stay here so Mr Wyse’s note had mentioned, for ‘about a week’, after which she would pay visits to her relations the Wyses of Whitchurch and others. So for a whole week (or about) Lucia would be in perpetual danger of being called upon to talk Italian. Indeed, the danger was more than mere danger, for if anything in this world was certain, it was that Mr Wyse would ask her to dinner during this week, and exposure would follow. Complete disappearance from Tilling during the Contessa’s sojourn here was the only possible plan, yet how was that to be accomplished? Her house at Riseholme was let, but even if it had not been, she could not leave Tilling to-morrow, when she had invited everybody to a party in the evening.
The clock struck noon: she had meditated for a full half-hour, and now she rose.
‘I can only think of influenza,’ she said to herself. ‘But I shall consult Georgie. A man might see it from another angle.’
He came at once to her SOS.
‘Georgino mio,’ began Lucia, but then suddenly corrected herself. ‘Georgie,’ she said. ‘Something very disagreeable. The Contessa Thingummy is coming to the Wyses to-morrow, and he’s asked me if he may bring her to our musica. I had to say yes; no way out of it.’
Georgie was often very perceptive, He saw what this meant at once.
‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘Can’t you put it off? Sprain your thumb.’
The man’s angle was not being of much use so far.
‘Not a bit of good,’ she said. ‘She’ll be here about a week, and naturally I have to avoid meeting her altogether. The only thing I can think of is influenza.’
Georgie never smoked in the morning, but the situation seemed to call for a cigarette.
‘That would do it,’ he said. ‘Rather a bore for you, but you could
live in the secret garden a good deal. It’s not overlooked.’
He stopped: the unusual tobacco had stimulated his perceptive powers.
‘But what about me?’ he said.
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Lucia.
‘You’re not looking far enough,’ said Georgie. ‘You’re not taking the long view which you so often talk to me about. I can’t have influenza too, it would be too suspicious. So I’m bound to meet the Faraglione and she’ll see in a minute I can’t talk Italian.’
‘Well?’ said Lucia in a very selfish manner, as if he didn’t matter at all.
‘Oh, I’m not thinking about myself only,’ said Georgie in self-defence. ‘Not so at all. It’ll react on you. You and I are supposed to talk Italian together, and when it’s obvious I can’t say more than three things in it, the fat’s in the fire, however much influenza you have. How are you going to be supposed to jabber away in Italian to me when it’s seen that I can’t understand a word of it?’
Here indeed was the male angle, and an extremely awkward angle it was. For a moment Lucia covered her face with her hands.
‘Georgie, what are we to do?’ she asked in a stricken voice.
Georgie was a little ruffled at having been considered of such absolute unimportance until he pointed out to Lucia that her fate was involved with his, and it pleased him to echo her words.
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ he said stiffly.
Lucia hastened to smooth his smart.
‘My dear, I’m so glad I thought of consulting you,’ she said. ‘I knew it would take a man’s mind to see all round the question, and how right you are! I never thought of that.’
‘Quite,’ said Georgie. ‘It’s evident you haven’t grasped the situation at all.’
She paced up and down the garden-room in silence, recoiling once from the window, as she saw Elizabeth go by and kiss her hand with that awful hyena grin of hers.