Lucia Victrix

  ‘Wherever you happened to put it, I suppose,’ said Diva.

  Elizabeth looked in the corner by the fireplace.

  ‘That’s where I put it,’ she said. ‘Who can have moved it?’

  ‘You, of course. Probably took it into the card-room.’

  ‘I’m perfectly certain I didn’t,’ said Elizabeth, hurrying there. ‘Where’s the switch, Diva?’

  ‘Behind the door.’

  ‘What an inconvenient place to put it. It ought to have been the other side.’

  Elizabeth cannoned into the card-table and a heavy fall of cards and markers followed.

  ‘Afraid I’ve upset something,’ she said. ‘Ah, I’ve got it.’

  ‘I said you’d taken it there yourself,’ said Diva. ‘Pick those things up.’

  ‘No, not the riding-whip; the switch,’ she said.

  Elizabeth looked in this corner and that, and under tables and chairs, but there was no sign of what she sought. She came out, leaving the light on.

  ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Perhaps the Padre has taken it. Or Evie.’

  ‘Better go round and ask them,’ said Diva.

  ‘Thank you, dear. Or might I use your telephone? It would save me a walk.’

  The call was made, but they were both at choir-practice.

  ‘Or Mr Georgie, do you think?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘I’ll just inquire.’

  Now one of Diva’s most sacred economies was the telephone. She would always walk a reasonable distance herself to avoid these outlays which, though individually small, mounted up so ruinously.

  ‘If you want to telephone to all Tilling, Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘you’d better go home and do it from there.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Elizabeth effusively; ‘I’ll pay you for the calls now, at once.’

  She opened her bag, dropped it, and a shower of coins of low denomination scattered in all directions on the parquet floor.

  ‘Clumsy of me,’ she said, pouncing on the bullion. ‘Ninepence in coppers, two sixpences and a shilling, but I know there was a threepenny bit. It must have rolled under your pretty sideboard. Might I have a candle, dear?’

  ‘No,’ said Diva firmly. ‘If there’s a threepenny bit, Janet will find it when she sweeps in the morning. You must get along without it till then.’

  ‘There’s no “if” about it, dear. There was a threepenny bit. I specially noticed it because it was a new one. With your permission I’ll ring up Mallards.’

  Foljambe answered. No; Mr Georgie had taken his umbrella when he went out to tea, and he couldn’t have brought back a riding-whip by mistake … Would Foljambe kindly make sure by asking him … He was in his bath … Then would she just call through the door. Mrs Mapp-Flint would hold the line.

  As Elizabeth waited for the answer, humming a little tune, Janet came in with Diva’s glass of sherry. She put up two fingers and her eyebrows to inquire whether she should bring two glasses, and Diva shook her head. Presently Georgie came to the telephone himself.

  ‘Wouldn’t have bothered you for words, Mr Georgie,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Foljambe said you were in your bath. She must have made a mistake.’

  ‘I was just going,’ said Georgie rather crossly, for the water must be getting cold. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Benjy’s riding-whip has disappeared most mysteriously, and I can’t rest till I trace it. I thought you might possibly have taken it away by mistake.’

  ‘What, the tiger one?’ said Georgie, much interested in spite of the draught round his ankles. ‘What a disaster. But I haven’t got it. What a series of adventures it’s had! I saw you bring it into Diva’s; I noticed it particularly.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Elizabeth, and rang off.

  ‘And now for the police-station,’ said Diva, sipping her delicious sherry. ‘That’ll be your fourth call.’

  ‘Third, dear,’ said Elizabeth, uneasily wondering what Georgie meant by the series of adventures. ‘But that would be premature for the present. I must search a little more here, for it must be somewhere. Oh, here’s Paddy. Good dog! Come to help Auntie Mayoress to find pretty riding-whip? Seek it, Paddy.’

  Paddy, intelligently following Elizabeth’s pointing hand, thought it must be a leaf of Diva’s evening paper, which she had dropped on the floor, that Auntie Mayoress wanted. He pounced on it, and worried it.

  ‘Paddy, you fool,’ cried Diva. ‘Drop it at once. Torn to bits and all wet. Entirely your fault, Elizabeth.’ She rose, intensely irritated.

  ‘You must give it up for the present,’ she said to Elizabeth who was poking about among the logs in the wood-basket. ‘All most mysterious, I allow, but it’s close on my supper-time, and that interests me more.’

  Elizabeth was most reluctant to return to Benjy with the news that she had called for the riding-whip at the office of the Argus and had subsequently lost it.

  ‘But it’s Benjy’s most cherished relic,’ she said. ‘It was the very riding-whip with which he smacked the tiger over the face, while he picked up his rifle and then shot him.’

  ‘Such a lot of legends aren’t there?’ said Diva menacingly. ‘And if other people get talking there may be one or two more, just as remarkable. And I want my supper.’

  Elizabeth paused in her search. This dark saying produced an immediate effect.

  ‘Too bad of me to stop so long,’ she said. ‘And thanks, dear, for my delicious tea. It would be kind of you if you had another look round.’

  Diva saw her off. The disappearance of the riding-whip was really very strange: positively spooky. And though Elizabeth had been a great nuisance, she deserved credit and sympathy for her ingenious version of the awkward incident … She looked for the pennies which Elizabeth had promised to pay at once for those telephone-calls, but there was no trace of them, and all her exasperation returned.

  ‘Just like her,’ she muttered. ‘That’s the sort of thing that really annoys me. So mean!’

  It was Janet’s evening out, and after eating her supper, Diva returned to the tea-room for a few games of patience. It was growing cold; Janet had forgotten to replenish the wood-basket, and Diva went out to the wood-shed with an electric torch to fetch in a few more logs. Something gleamed in the light, and she picked up a silver cap, which seemed vaguely familiar. A fragment of chewed wood projected from it, and looking more closely she saw engraved on it the initials B. F.

  ‘Golly! It’s it,’ whispered the awe-struck Diva. ‘Benjamin Flint, before he Mapped himself. But why here? And how?’

  An idea struck her, and she called Paddy, but Paddy had no doubt gone out with Janet. Forgetting about fresh logs but with this relic in her hand, Diva returned to her room, and warmed herself with intellectual speculation.

  Somebody had disposed of all the riding-whip except this metallic fragment. By process of elimination (for she acquitted Janet of having eaten it), it must be Paddy. Should she ring up Elizabeth and say that the riding-whip had been found? That would not be true, for all that had been found was a piece of overwhelming evidence that it never would be found. Besides, who could tell what Elizabeth had said to Benjy by this time? Possibly (even probably, considering what Elizabeth was) she would not tell him that she had retrieved it from the office of the Argus, and thus escape his just censure for having lost it.

  ‘I believe,’ thought Diva, ‘that it might save developments which nobody can foresee, if I said nothing about it to anybody. Nobody knows except Paddy and me. Silentio, as Lucia says, when she’s gabbling fit to talk your head off. Let them settle it between themselves, but nobody shall suspect me of having had anything to do with it. I’ll bury it in the garden before Janet comes back. Rather glad Paddy ate it. I was tired of Major Benjy showing me the whip, and telling me about it over and over again. Couldn’t be true, either. I’m killing a lie.’

  With the help of a torch and a trowel Diva put the relic beyond reasonable risk of discovery. This was only just done when Janet returned with Paddy.

  ‘Been str
olling in the garden,’ said Diva with chattering teeth. ‘Such a mild night. Dear Paddy! Such a clever dog.’

  Elizabeth pondered over the mystery as she walked briskly home, and when she came to discuss it with Benjy after dinner they presently became very friendly. She reminded him that he had behaved like a poltroon this morning, and, like a loyal wife, she had shielded him from exposure by her ingenious explanations. She disclosed that she had retrieved the riding-whip from the Argus office, but had subsequently lost it at Diva’s tea-rooms. A great pity, but it still might turn up. What they must fix firmly in their minds was that Benjy had gone to the office of the Argus merely to pay a polite call on Mr McConnell, and that Elizabeth had never seen the monstrous caricature of herself in that paper.

  ‘That’s settled then,’ she said, ‘and it’s far the most dignified course we can take. And I’ve been thinking about more important things than these paltry affairs. There’s an election to the Town Council next month. One vacancy. I shall stand.’

  ‘Not very wise, Liz,’ he said. ‘You tried that once, and came in at the bottom of the poll.’

  ‘I know that. Lucia and I polled exactly the same number of votes. But times have changed now. She’s Mayor and I’m Mayoress. It’s of her I’m thinking. I shall be much more assistance to her as a Councillor. I shall be a support to her at the meetings.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you,’ said Benjy. ‘Does she see it like that?’

  ‘I’ve not told her yet. I shall be firm in any case. Well, it’s bedtime; such an exciting day! Dear me, if I didn’t forget to pay Diva for a few telephone-calls I made from her house. Dear Diva, and her precious economies!’

  And in Diva’s back-garden, soon to tarnish by contact with the loamy soil, there lay buried, like an unspent shell with all its explosive potentialities intact, the silver cap of the vanished relic.

  Mayoring day arrived and Lucia, formally elected by the Town Council, assumed her scarlet robes. She swept them a beautiful curtsey and said she was their servant. She made a touching allusion to her dear friend the Mayoress, whose loyal and loving support would alone render her own immense responsibilities a joy to shoulder, and Elizabeth, wreathed in smiles, dabbed her handkerchief on the exact piece of her face where tears, had there been any, would have bedewed it. The Mayor then entertained a large party to lunch at the King’s Arms Hotel, preceding them in state while church bells rang, dogs barked, cameras clicked, and the sun gleamed on the massive maces borne before her. There were cheers for Lucia led by the late Mayor and cheers for the Mayoress led by her present husband.

  In the afternoon Lucia inaugurated Diva’s tea-shop, incognita as Mrs Pillson. The populace of Tilling was not quite so thrilled as she had expected at the prospect of taking its tea in the same room as the Mayor, and no one saw her drink the first cup of tea except Georgie and Diva, who kept running to the window on the look-out for customers. Seeing Susan in her Royce, she tapped on the pane, and got her to come in so that they could inaugurate the card-room with a rubber of bridge. Then suddenly a torrent of folk invaded the tea-room and Diva had to leave an unfinished hand to help Janet to serve them.

  ‘Wish they’d come sooner,’ she said, ‘to see the ceremony. Do wait a bit; if they ease off we can finish our game.’

  She hurried away. A few minutes afterwards she opened the door and said in a thrilling whisper, ‘Fourteen shilling ones, and two eighteen-penny’s.’

  ‘Splendid!’ said everybody, and Susan began telling them about her automatic script.

  ‘I sit there with my eyes shut and my pencil in my hand,’ she said, ‘and Blue Birdie on the table by me. I get a sort of lost feeling, and then Blue Birdie seems to say “Tweet, tweet,” and I say “Good morning dear.” Then my pencil begins to move. I never know what it writes. A queer, scrawling hand, not a bit like mine.’

  The door opened and Diva’s face beamed redly.

  ‘Still twelve shilling ones,’ she said, ‘though six of the first lot have gone. Two more eighteen-penny, but the cream is getting low, and Janet’s had to add milk.’

  ‘Where had I got to?’ said Susan. ‘Oh, yes. It goes on writing till Blue Birdie seems to say “Tweet, tweet” again, and that means it’s fnished and I say “Goodbye, dear”.’

  ‘What sort of things does it write?’ asked Lucia.

  ‘All sorts. This morning it kept writing mère over and over again.’

  ‘That’s very strange,’ said Lucia eagerly. ‘Very. I expect Blue Birdie wants to say something to me.’

  ‘No,’ said Susan. ‘Not your sort of Mayor. The French word mère, just as if Blue Birdie said “Mummie”. Speaking to me evidently.’

  This did not seem to interest Lucia.

  ‘And anything of value?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s all of value,’ said Susan.

  A slight crash sounded from the tea-room.

  ‘Only a teacup,’ said Diva, looking in again. ‘Rather like breaking a bottle of wine when you launch a ship.’

  ‘Would you like me to show myself for a minute?’ asked Lucia. ‘I will gladly walk through the room if it would help.’

  ‘So good of you, but I don’t want any help except in handling things. Besides, I told the reporter of the Argus that you had had your tea, and were playing cards in here.’

  ‘Oh, not quite wise, Diva,’ said Lucia. ‘Tell him I wasn’t playing for money. Think of the example.’

  ‘Afraid he’s gone,’ said Diva. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t be true. Two of your Councillors here just now. Shillings. Didn’t charge them. Advertisement.’

  The press of customers eased off, and, leaving Janet to deal with the remainder, Diva joined them, clinking a bag of bullion.

  ‘Lots of tips,’ she said. ‘I never reckoned on that. Mostly twopences, but they’ll add up. I must just count the takings, and then let’s finish the rubber.’

  The takings exceeded all expectation; quite a pile of silver; a pyramid of copper.

  ‘What will you do with all that money now the banks are closed?’ asked Georgie lightly. ‘Such a sum to have in the house. I should bury it in the garden.’

  Diva’s hand gave an involuntary twitch as she swept the coppers into a bag. Odd that he should say that!

  ‘Safe enough,’ she replied. ‘Paddy sleeps in my room, now that I know he hasn’t got mange.’

  The Mayoral banquet followed in the evening. Unfortunately, neither the Lord Lieutenant nor the Bishop nor the Member of Parliament were able to attend, but they sent charming letters of regret, which Lucia read before her Chaplain, the Padre, said Grace. She wore her Mayoral chain of office round her neck, and her chain of inherited seed-pearls in her hair, and Georgie, as arranged, sat alone on the other side of the table directly opposite her. He was disadvantageously placed with regard to supplies of food and drink, for the waiter had to go round the far end of the side-tables to get at him, but he took extra large helpings when he got the chance, and had all his wine-glasses filled. He wore on the lapel of his coat a fine green and white enamel star, which had long lain among his bibelots, and which looked like a foreign order. At the far end of the room was a gallery, from which ladies, as if in purdah, were allowed to look on. Elizabeth sat in the front row, and waggled her hand at the Mayor, whenever Lucia looked in her direction, in order to encourage her. Once, when a waiter was standing just behind Lucia, Elizabeth felt sure that she had caught her eye, and kissed her hand to her. The waiter promptly responded, and the Mayoress, blushing prettily, ceased to signal … There were flowery speeches made and healths drunk, and afterwards a musical entertainment. The Mayor created a precedent by contributing to this herself and giving (as the Hampshire Argus recorded in its next issue) an exquisite rendering on the piano of the slow movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. It produced a somewhat pensive effect, and she went back to her presiding place again amid respectful applause and a shrill, solitary cry of ‘Encore!’ from Elizabeth. The spirits of her guests revived under the spell of light
er melodies, and at the end ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was sung with crossed hands by all the company, with the exception of Georgie, who had no neighbours. Lucia swept regal curtsies to right and left, and a loop of the seed-pearls in her hair got loose and oscillated in front of her face.

  The Mayor and her Prince Consort drove back to Mallards, Lucia strung up to the highest pitch of triumph, Georgie intensely fatigued. She put him through a catechism of self-glorification in the garden-room.

  ‘I think I gave them a good dinner,’ she said. ‘And the wine was excellent, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Admirable,’ said Georgie.

  ‘And my speech. Not too long?’

  ‘Not a bit. Exactly right.’

  ‘I thought they drank my health very warmly. Non e vero?’

  ‘Very. Molto,’ said Georgie.

  Lucia struck a chord on the piano before she closed it.

  ‘Did I take the “Moonlight” a little too quick?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I never heard you play it better.’

  ‘I felt the enthusiasm tingling round me,’ she said. ‘In the days of horse-drawn vehicles, I am sure they would have taken my horses out of the shafts and pulled us up home. But impossible with a motor.’

  Georgie yawned.

  ‘They might have taken out the carburetter,’ he said wearily.

  She glanced at some papers on her table.

  ‘I must be up early to-morrow,’ she said, ‘to be ready for Mrs Simpson … A new era, Georgie. I seem to see a new era for our dear Tilling.’

  4

  Lucia did not find her new duties quite as onerous as she expected, but she made them as onerous as she could. She pored over plans for new houses which the Corporation was building, and having once grasped the difference between section and elevation was full of ideas for tasteful weather-cocks, lightning conductors and balconies. With her previous experience in Stock Exchange transactions to help her, she went deeply into questions of finance and hit on a scheme of borrowing money at three and a half per cent for a heavy outlay for the renewal of drains, and investing it in some thoroughly sound concern that brought in four and a half per cent. She explained this masterpiece to Georgie.