Elizabeth was reading this aloud to Benjy, as they lunched in the verandah of their bungalow, in an indignant voice. At this point she covered up with her hand the remainder of the paragraph.
‘Mark my words, Benjy,’ she said. ‘I prophesy that what happened next was that the Governors accepted this gift with the deepest gratitude and did themselves the honour of inviting her to a seat on the Board.’
It was all too true, and Elizabeth finished the stewed plums in silence. She rose to make coffee.
‘The Hastings Chronicle ought to keep “Munificent Gift by Mrs Lucas of Mallards House, Tilling” permanently set up in type,’ she observed. ‘And “House” is new. In my day and Aunt Caroline’s before me, “Mallards” was grand enough. It will be “Mallards Palace” before she’s finished with it.’
But with this last atrocity, the plague of munificences was stayed for the present. August cooled down into September, and September disgraced itself at the season of its spring tides by brewing a terrific south-west gale. The sea heaped up by the continued press of the wind broke through the shingle bank on the coast and flooded the low land behind, where some of the bungalows stood. That inhabited by the Padre and Evie was built on a slight elevation and escaped being inundated, but the Mapp-Flints were swamped. Nearly a foot of water covered the rooms on the ground floor, and until it subsided, the house was uninhabitable unless you treated it like a palazzo on the Grand Canal at Venice, and had a gondola moored to the banisters of the stairs. News of the disaster was brought to Tilling by the Padre when he bicycled in to take matins on Sunday morning. He met Lucia at the church door, and in a few vivid sentences described how the unfortunate couple had waded ashore. They had breakfasted with him and Evie and would lunch and sup there, but then they would have to wade back again to sleep, since he had no spare room. A sad holiday experience: and he hurried off to the vestry to robe.
The beauty of her organ wrought upon Lucia, for she had asked the organist to play Falberg’s ‘Storm at Sea’ as a voluntary at the end of the service, and, as she listened, the inexorable might of Nature, of which the Mapp-Flints were victims, impressed itself on her. Moreover she really enjoyed dispensing benefits with a bountiful hand on the worthy and unworthy alike, and by the time the melodious storm was over she had made up her mind to give board and lodging to the refugees until the salt water had ebbed from their ground-floor rooms. Grebe was still let and resonant with forty-seven canaries, and she must shelter them, as Noah took back the dove sent out over the waste of waters, in the Ark of their old home … She joined softly in the chorale of passengers and sailors, and left the church with Georgie.
‘I shall telephone to them at once, Georgie,’ she said, ‘and offer to take them in at Mallards House. The car shall fetch them after lunch.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Georgie. ‘Why shouldn’t they go to an hotel?’
‘Caro, simply because they wouldn’t go,’ said Lucia. ‘They would continue to wade to their beds and sponge on the Padre. Besides if their bungalow collapsed – it is chiefly made of laths tied together with pieces of string and pebbles from the shore – and buried them in the ruins, I should truly regret it. Also I welcome the opportunity of doing a kindness to poor Elizabeth. Mallards House will always be at the service of the needy. I imagine it will only be for a day or two. You must promise to lunch and dine with me, won’t you, as long as they are with me, for I don’t think I could bear them alone.’
Lucia adopted the seignorial manner suitable to the donor of organs and operating-theatres. She instructed Grosvenor to telephone in the most cordial terms to Mrs Mapp-Flint, and wrote out what she should say. Mrs Lucas could not come to the telephone herself at that moment, but she sent her sympathy, and insisted on their making Mallards House their home, till the bungalow was habitable again: she thought she could make them quite comfortable in her little house. Elizabeth of course accepted her hospitality though it was odd that she had not telephoned herself. So Lucia made arrangements for the reception of her guests. She did not intend to give up her bedroom and dressing-room which they had occupied before, since it would be necessary to bring another bed in, and it would be very inconvenient to turn out herself. Besides, so it happily occurred to her, it would arouse very poignant emotion if they found themselves in their old nuptial chamber. Elizabeth should have the pleasant room looking over the garden, and Benjy the one at the end of the passage, and the little sitting-room next Elizabeth’s should be devoted to their exclusive use. That would be princely hospitality, and thus the garden-room, where she always sat, would not be invaded during the day. After tea, they might play bridge there, and of course use it after dinner for more bridge or music. Then it was time to send Cadman with the motor to fetch them, and Lucia furnished it with a thick fur rug and a hot-water bottle in case they had caught cold with their wadings. She put a Sunday paper in their sitting-room, and strewed a few books about to give it an inhabited air, and went out as usual for her walk, for it would be more in the seignorial style if Grosvenor settled them in, and she herself casually returned about tea-time, certain that everything would have been done for their comfort.
This sumptuous insouciance a little miscarried, for though Grosvenor had duly conducted the visitors to their own private sitting-room, they made a quiet little pilgrimage through the house while she was unpacking for them, peeped into the Office, and were sitting in the garden-room when Lucia returned.
‘So sorry to be out when you arrived, dear Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘but I knew Grosvenor would make you at home.’
Elizabeth sprang up from her old seat in the window. (What a bitter joy it was to survey from there again.)
‘Dear Lucia,’ she cried. ‘Too good of you to take in the poor homeless ones. Putting you out dreadfully, I’m afraid.’
‘Not an atom. Tutto molto facile. And there’s the parlour upstairs ready for you, which I hope Grosvenor showed you.’
‘Indeed she did,’ said Elizabeth effusively. ‘Deliciously cosy. So kind.’
‘And what a horrid experience you must have had,’ said Lucia. ‘Tea will be ready: let us go in.’
‘A waste of waters,’ said Elizabeth impressively, ‘and a foot deep in the dining-room. We had to have a boat to take our luggage away. It reminded Benjy of the worst floods on the Jumna.’
‘’Pon my word, it did,’ said Benjy, ‘and I shouldn’t wonder if there’s more to come. The wind keeps up, and there’s the highest of the spring tides to-night. Total immersion of the Padre, perhaps. Ha! Ha! Baptism of those of Riper Years.’
‘Naughty!’ said Elizabeth. Certainly the Padre had been winning at bridge all this week, but that hardly excused levity over things sacramental, and besides he had given them lunch and breakfast. Lucia also thought his joke in poor taste and called attention to her dahlias. She had cut a new flower-bed, where there had once stood a very repulsive weeping-ash, which had been planted by Aunt Caroline, and which, to Elizabeth’s pretty fancy, had always seemed to mourn for her. She suddenly felt its removal very poignantly, and not trusting herself to speak about that, called attention to the lovely red admiral butterflies on the buddleia. With which deft changes of subjects they went in to tea. Georgie and bridge, and dinner, and more bridge followed, and Lucia observed with strong misgivings that Elizabeth left her bag and Benjy his cigar-case in the garden-room when they went to bed. This seemed to portend their return there in the morning, so she called attention to their forgetfulness. Elizabeth on getting upstairs had a further lapse of memory, for she marched into Lucia’s bedroom, which she particularly wanted to see, before she recollected that it was no longer her own.
Lucia was rung up at breakfast next morning by the Padre. There was more diluvial news from the shore, and his emotion caused him to speak pure English without a trace of Scotch or Irish. A tide, higher than ever, had caused a fresh invasion of the sea, and now his bungalow was islanded, and the gale had torn a quantity of slates from the roof. Georgie, he said, had kin
dly offered to take him in, as the Vicarage was still let, and he waited in silence until Lucia asked him where Evie was going. He didn’t know, and Lucia’s suggestion that she should come to Mallards House was very welcome. She promised to send her car to bring them in and rejoined her guests.
‘More flooding,’ she said, ‘just as you prophesied, Major Benjy. So Evie is coming here, and Georgie will take the Padre. I’m sure you won’t mind moving on to the attic floor, and letting her have your room.’
Benjy’s face fell.
‘Oh, dear me, no,’ he said heartily. ‘I’ve roughed it before now.’
‘We shall be quite a party,’ said Elizabeth without any marked enthusiasm, for she supposed that Evie would share their sitting-room.
Lucia went to see to her catering, and her guests to their room, taking the morning papers with them.
‘I should have thought that Diva might have taken Evie in, or she might have gone to the King’s Arms,’ said Elizabeth musingly. ‘But dear Lucia revels in being Lady Bountiful. Gives her real pleasure.’
‘I don’t much relish sleeping in one of those attics,’ said Benjy. ‘Draughty places with sloping roofs if I remember right.’
Elizabeth’s pride in her ancestral home flickered up.
‘They’re better than any rooms in the house you had before we married, darling,’ she said. ‘And not quite tactful to have told her you had roughed it before now … Was your haddock at breakfast quite what it should be?’
‘Perfectly delicious,’ said Benjy hitting back. ‘It’s a treat to get decent food again after that garbage we’ve been having.’
‘Thank you dear,’ said Elizabeth.
She picked up a paper, read it for a moment and decided to make common cause with him.
‘Now I come to think of it,’ she said, ‘it would have been easy enough for Lucia not to have skied you to the attics. You and I could have had our old bedroom and dressing-room, and there would have been the other two rooms for her and Evie. But we must take what’s given us and be thankful. What I do want to know is whether we’re allowed in the garden-room unless she asks us. She seemed to give you your cigar-case and me my bag last night rather purposefully. Not that this is a bad room by any means.’
‘It’ll get stuffy enough this afternoon,’ said he, ‘for it’s going to rain all day and I suppose there’ll be three of us here.’
Elizabeth sighed.
‘I suppose it didn’t occur to her to take this room herself, and give her guests the garden-room,’ she said. ‘Not selfish at all: I don’t mean that, but perhaps a little wanting in imagination. I’ll go down to the garden-room presently and see how the land lies … There’s the telephone ringing again. That’s the third time since breakfast. She’s arranging football-matches, I expect. Oh, the Daily Mirror has got hold of her gift to the hospital. “Most munificent”: how tired I am of the word. Of course it’s the silly season still.’
Had Elizabeth known what that third telephone-call was, she would have called the season by a more serious name than silly. The speaker was the Mayor, who now asked Lucia if she could see him privately for a few moments. She told him that it would be quite convenient, and might have added that it was also very exciting. Was there perhaps another Board which desired to have the honour of her membership? The Literary Institute? The Workhouse? The – Back she went to the garden-room and hurriedly sat down at her piano and began communing with Beethoven. She was so absorbed in her music that she gave a startled little cry when Grosvenor, raising her voice to an unusual pitch called out for the second time: ‘The Mayor of Tilling!’ Up she sprang.
‘Ah, good morning, Mr Mayor,’ she cried. ‘So glad. Grosvenor, I’m not to be interrupted. I was just snatching a few minutes, as I always do after breakfast, at my music. It tunes me in – don’t they call it – for the work of the day. Now, how can I serve you?’
His errand quite outshone the full splendour of Lucia’s imagination. A member of the Town Council had just resigned, owing to ill-health, and the Mayor was on his way to an emergency meeting. The custom was, he explained, if such a vacancy occurred during the course of the year, that no fresh election should be held, but that the other members of the Council should co-opt a temporary member to serve till the next elections came round. Would she therefore permit him to suggest her name?
Lucia sat with her chin in her hand in the music attitude. Certainly that was an enormous step upwards from having been equal with Elizabeth at the bottom of the poll … Then she began to speak in a great hurry, for she thought she heard a footfall on the stairs into the garden-room. Probably Elizabeth had eluded Grosvenor.
‘How I appreciate the honour,’ she said. ‘But – but how I should hate to feel that the dear townsfolk would not approve. The last elections, you know … Ah, I see what is in your mind. You think that since then they realize a little more the sincerity of my desire to forward Tilling’s welfare to the best of my humble capacity.’ (There came a tap at the door.) ‘I see I shall have to yield and, if your colleagues wish it, I gladly accept the great honour.’
The door had opened a chink; Elizabeth’s ears had heard the words ‘great honour’, and now her mouth (she had eluded Grosvenor) said:
‘May I come in, dear?’
‘Entrate,’ said Lucia. ‘Mr Mayor, do you know Mrs Mapp-Flint? You must! Such an old inhabitant of dear Tilling. Dreadful floods out by the links, and several friends, Major and Mrs Mapp-Flint and the Padre and Mrs Bartlett are all washed out. But such a treat for me, for I am taking them in, and have quite a party. Mallards House and I are always at the service of our citizens. But I mustn’t detain you. You will let me know whether the meeting accepts your suggestion? I shall be eagerly waiting.’
Lucia insisted on seeing the Mayor to the front door, but returned at once to the garden-room, which had been thus violated by Elizabeth.
‘I hope your sitting-room is comfortable, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘You’ve got all you want there? Sure?’
The desire to know what those ominous words ‘great honour’ could possibly signify, consumed Elizabeth like a burning fire, and she was absolutely impervious to the hint so strongly conveyed to her.
‘Delicious, dear,’ she enthusiastically replied. ‘So cosy, and Benjy so happy with his cigar and his paper. But didn’t I hear the piano going just now? Sounded so lovely. May I sit mum as a mouse and listen?’
Lucia could not quite bring herself to say ‘No, go away,’ but she felt she must put her foot down. She had given her visitors a sitting-room of their own, and did not intend to have them here in the morning. Perhaps if she put her foot down on what she always called the sostenuto pedal, and played loud scales and exercises she could render the room intolerable to any listener.
‘By all means,’ she said. ‘I have to practise very hard every morning to keep my poor fingers from getting rusty, or Georgie scolds me over our duets.’
Elizabeth slid into her familiar place in the window where she could observe the movements of Tilling, conducted chiefly this morning under umbrellas, and Lucia began. C major up and down till her fingers ached with their unaccustomed drilling: then a few firm chords in that jovial key.
‘Lovely chords! Such harmonies,’ said Elizabeth, seeing Lucia’s motor draw up at Mallards Cottage and deposit the Padre and his suit-case.
C minor. This was more difficult. Lucia found that the upward scale was not the same as the downward, and she went over it half a dozen times, rumbling at first at the bottom end of the piano and then shrieking at the top and back again, before she got it right. A few simple minor chords followed.
‘That wonderful funeral march,’ said Elizabeth absently. Evie had thrust her head out of the window of the motor, and, to anybody who had any perception, was quite clearly telling Georgie, who had come to the door, about the flood, for she lowered and then raised her podgy little paw, evidently showing how much the flood had risen during the night.
As she watched, Lucia had begu
n to practise shakes, including that very difficult one for the third and fourth fingers.
‘Like the sweet birdies in my garden,’ said Elizabeth, still absently (though nothing could possibly have been less like), ‘thrushes and blackbirds and …’ Her voice trailed into silence as the motor moved on, down the street towards Mallards, minus the Padre and his suit-case.
‘And here’s Evie just arriving,’ she said, thinking that Lucia would stop that hideous noise, and go out to welcome her guest. Not a bit of it: the scale of D major followed: it was markedly slower because her fingers were terribly fatigued. Then Grosvenor came in. She left the door open, and a strong draught blew round Elizabeth’s ankles.
‘Yes, Grosvenor?’ said Lucia, with her hands poised over the keys.
‘The Mayor has rung up, ma’am,’ said Grosvenor, ‘and would like to speak to you, if you are disengaged.’
The Mayoral call was irresistible, and Lucia went to the telephone in her Office. Elizabeth, crazy with curiosity, followed, and instantly became violently interested in the book-case in the hall, where she hoped she could hear Lucia’s half, at any rate, of the conversation. After two or three gabbling, quacking noises, her voice broke jubilantly in.
‘Indeed, I am most highly honoured, Mr Mayor –’ she began. Then, unfortunately for the cause of the dissemination of useful knowledge, she caught sight of Elizabeth in the hall just outside with an open book in her hand, and smartly shut the Office door. Having taken this sensible precaution she continued:
‘Please assure my colleagues, as I understand that the Town Council is sitting now, that I will resolutely shoulder the responsibility of my position.’
‘Should you be unoccupied at the moment, Mrs Lucas,’ said the Mayor, ‘perhaps you would come and take part in the business that lies before us, as you are now a member of the Council.’