Au Reservoir (8 page)

‘Ridiculous, I know,’ Irene agreed, taking a healthy gulp from her pint of bitter, ‘but there you are. That’s Mapp for you.’

‘And where did all this silly talk of banning us from Mallards come from, then?’ Olga demanded.

‘Oh, that came next in the gospel according to Mapp,’ Irene replied with heavy sarcasm. ‘“Darling Lulu” saw through your “pathetic little scheme” as she put it, and left an angry letter with Olga’s maid saying she was disgusted with your behaviour – both of you, that is – that she was sick and tired of you, Georgie, “gallivanting off” with Olga, and asking you to leave her to live on her own at Mallards while you “made your own arrangements”, if you please.’

‘Was that all?’ Olga asked quietly.

‘There was quite a lot more if you cared to listen to it,’ Irene responded. ‘Personally, I didn’t. I told her in front of everyone that she was a rancorous old bat, and left.’

She drained her pint and put it down, watching little flecks of white foam sliding down the glass.

‘I found out later from Diva, though, that Mapp waxed lyrical about the prospect of Lucia sitting all by herself in Mallards, growing old and bitter alone.’

‘Oh, I say!’ broke in Georgie, appalled. Olga looked close to tears.

‘Fortunately of course, this was going way too far, just like she always does. Apparently Diva told her she was being unchristian and Mr Wyse, who had been too polite to leave when I did, bowed and said Mapp was surely overlooking the fact that Lucia would never be lonely as she would always have lots of friends in Tilling. Then he and Susan went too.’

Olga and Georgie could imagine only too well the malignant look of triumph with which Mapp would have gazed around at this point, seeing the departure of her audience as evidence that, thanks to her powers of perception and oratory, they were now reeling at this glimpse of truth so newly revealed to them.

‘Well, at least now we know everything,’ Georgie said gloomily.

‘I’m afraid you don’t,’ came Irene’s prompt rejoinder, as she gazed significantly at her glass.

A new pint promptly installed in front of her, she continued with her narrative.

‘What I’ve just told you was the end rather than the beginning, actually. It all grew out of an earlier rant about Lucia’s “imaginary friends” like Noël Coward. In fact, I think it was getting so worked up about that when nobody wanted to believe her that made her go so far with the other thing. You know what she’s like – I could see her getting more and more excited as she went along.’

‘What about Noël Coward?’ Olga asked.

‘Well,’ Irene said sadly, ‘Lucia did rather let herself in for it. She said that she knew Noël Coward.’

‘But that was ages ago,’ protested Georgie.

Olga looked at him questioningly.

‘Oh, you know all those silly invitations she kept sending out to people,’ Georgie explained in exasperation, ‘well, Elizabeth got to hear about it and started making fun of her asking and asking and not being able to get anyone to come.’

Olga put her chin in her hands and looked mournful.

‘And of course,’ Georgie went on, ‘the more Elizabeth made fun of her, the more Lucia rose to the bait. Finally Elizabeth came across Noël’s last letter, which made it quite clear that they didn’t know each other at all, and being Elizabeth tried to show it around to everyone.’

‘Oh, no!’ Olga gasped.

‘Yes! But fortunately the first person to whom she tried to show it was Mr Wyse and he looked at the letter, then looked puzzled, and then asked Elizabeth why she was inviting him to read a letter which was clearly addressed to someone else.’

‘Bravo, Mr Wyse!’ breathed Olga.

‘Bravo, indeed,’ Georgie concurred.

‘And what on earth did she say?’ Olga asked.

‘Well, of course she was taken completely aback. She had never expected that response. She thought everyone would just read it straight off, and then tell her how clever she had been to expose poor Lucia.’

‘And?’

‘And apparently Elizabeth got jolly flustered and said that she had found it lying around and that Lucia must have dropped it, and that of course she was just taking it back to her. So Mr Wyse said he could save her the trouble, folded it up, put it in his pocket and brought it round to Lucia – with a bow, naturally.’

‘Phew!’ said Olga in relief. ‘So nobody else read it?’

‘Well, I’m sure she must have shown it to the Major,’ Georgie mused doubtfully, ‘and Mr Wyse may well have read at least some of it accidentally, but of course his discretion can be relied upon absolutely.’

‘So can mine,’ said Irene with another meaningful glance at her glass, which seemed unaccountably to have emptied itself during Georgie’s explanation.

As they wandered disconsolately back towards Mallards and lunch, Olga and Georgie turned over in their minds everything they had heard that morning.

‘It’s really quite uncanny,’ Olga remarked, ‘how Elizabeth Mapp-Flint guesses at the truth so consistently.’

‘Indeed it is,’ Georgie agreed, ‘but fortunately she then exaggerates it so much that nobody will believe her. Just look at what happened this time. If she’d just stuck to that silly business with the trains people might have realised there really might be something to it, but by embellishing it with ridiculous episodes about a quarrel and a split with Lucia she lost her audience.’

‘Poor woman,’ said Olga. ‘How very unhappy she must be to make up such wicked stories.’

‘Oh, she’s just bitter and twisted inside. Really, after all these years of being bested by Lucia you’d think that she would just give up and accept it, but if anything she’s getting worse.’

‘I thought you said a week or two back that she’d been rather quiet since the war,’ Olga pointed out.

‘Well, yes, actually she had, now you come to mention it. That’s what makes this latest outburst so remarkable, I suppose. It’s almost as though she’s gone back entirely to her old ways.’

‘Without wishing to be unduly morbid,’ reflected Olga, ‘I suppose it’s always possible that she’s gathering herself for one last effort.’

Georgie looked blank.

‘Oh, come on, you dear old thing,’ Olga said gently. ‘We’re all of us now at that age when you have to come to terms with the fact that you really are going to die one day, and that it may be sooner than one would like.’

‘
Memento mori
,’ Georgie intoned gravely. ‘Yes, I know what you mean. How quickly the years seem to pass now. They did even during that dreadful war when we had bombs dropping on us and everything.’

They walked on a few steps in silence.

‘But do you really think that’s what behind this … this latest bout of vituperation from Mapp?’

‘Oh, I don’t know really,’ Olga said, trying to shake off the rather chill thoughts that had suddenly come crowding in upon her. ‘Perhaps it says more about my own feelings than hers. I really must stop drinking gin before lunch; it always makes me maudlin.’

‘I say,’ Georgie ventured hesitantly, ‘do you ever find yourself secretly wishing that, no matter how awful Mapp might be, once – only once mind – Mapp might actually win and Lucia lose? It does sometimes seem a little unfair the way Lucia just crushes everyone else beneath her chariot wheels.’

‘I know what you mean, Georgie dear, but then Mapp is so dreadful that any feeling of sympathy for her tends to get strangled at birth.’

‘Well, she’s jolly well going to win out now anyway, isn’t she?’ asked Georgie. ‘Perhaps it’s worth it. At least then maybe she’ll stop.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well,’ Georgie explained, ‘she’s more or less openly challenged Lucia to produce Noël here in Tilling and we know that Lucia can’t do that, so sooner or later everyone is going to realise that Mapp is right and that Lucia really has just been telling fibs about Noël all the time.’

‘But that would be dreadful!’ Olga cried. ‘Why, if that happened then people would begin to question everything Lucia says, even everything she has said in the past. Then
she
would be very unhappy.’

‘I know,’ Georgie said gloomily. ‘You know how angry she got when nobody would believe her about knowing Poppy – why, she turned the whole town against her for a while.’

‘But that was really a fib as well, wasn’t it? At least it started off that way.’

‘Well, of course it was. Poppy never really wanted to have anything to do with Lucia at all, you know how she was. It was just a case of any port in a storm. She needed somewhere to spend the night and knew that we lived nearby.’

‘So then what happened, Georgie? I can’t believe I don’t know the full story.’

‘Well, the next day Lucia was naturally bursting to tell the others about hosting a duchess, but because Poppy had left early in the morning nobody else had actually seen her, and because they were all upset with Lucia about something or other at the time nobody would believe her. Even Quaint Irene thought she was making it all up; I think that hurt Lucia most of all.’

‘But didn’t you tell me about some sort of confrontation? Or have I remembered it all wrong?’

‘Yes there was, and no you haven’t,’ Georgie replied firmly. ‘She pitched into everyone after church on Sunday and told them all what she thought of them. Pitched it to them very strong, in fact.’

‘How awful.’

Georgie nodded.

‘I don’t think she ever realised just how close she came to a total rupture, to nobody ever talking to her again, or if she did she never let on.’

‘But Poppy came back, didn’t she?’ Olga asked.

‘Yes, but it was completely by chance,’ Georgie said. ‘Poppy’s boat was delayed because of rough weather in the Channel, so she came back to stay another night, which gave Lucia a chance to invite everyone round to meet her. She’s always been lucky like that – it’s quite exasperating sometimes.’

‘I wonder,’ Olga said, ‘if we could completely take the wind out of Mapp’s sails once and for all, whether she would just slink back to Grebe with her tail between her legs and leave Lucia alone in future.’

She glanced across at Georgie and saw from his expression that she already knew the answer to that question.

‘What do you really think about this idea of a damery for Lucia?’ he asked, changing the subject.

‘I’m not sure,’ she replied cautiously. ‘I’m going to chat to Norman first of all and see whether this thing can fly or not.’

‘Norman?’

‘Oh, Norman Brook, silly, he’s the Cabinet Secretary. Don’t you remember, I introduced you to him one night at Covent Garden at one of those frightful supper parties that David Webster makes us all go to.’

‘And he would be a good person to ask, would he?’ asked Georgie, who found that he really could not remember the wretched man at all.

‘Of course!’ Olga cried in surprise. ‘Why, really, Georgie, don’t you ever read the papers?’

‘Not the political bits,’ Georgie said firmly. ‘I know that Attlee is Prime Minister and I know that budgets mean higher taxes, and that when politicians say one thing they mean another, and that’s quite enough for me.’

Olga sighed.

‘Norman runs the cabinet for Attlee, so he knows every cabinet minister and every senior civil servant. If we want someone to make discreet enquiries on our behalf I can’t think of anyone better. I’ll try to have lunch with him one day this week when I’m up in town.’

Georgie instantly felt very jealous at the idea of any other man having lunch with Olga, but suppressed the emotion with difficulty.

By this time they had arrived at Mallards. They opened the door, which naturally was on the latch in good Tilling fashion, and found that it still wanted a few minutes of one o’clock.

‘Lucia, darling,’ Olga said at once, ‘do I have time for a very quick telephone call?’

‘Help yourself, dear,’ Lucia replied, flapping a languid hand in the direction of the telephone room.

Olga gave the operator a Mayfair number and was soon speaking to Noël Coward’s valet.

‘Is he up yet?’ she enquired without preamble. ‘It’s Olga Bracely.’

‘I will enquire, madam,’ that worthy replied and there ensued a short pause before a clearly sleepy Noël Coward was brought to the phone.

‘Olga,’ he said distractedly. ‘What is it? You know I’m not to be disturbed before two o’clock. It is one of the firmest principles by which I govern my life.’

‘Never mind that,’ she replied briskly. ‘Do you remember a few weeks back when I got you and Johnnie and your friends a box when the House was sold out and you said it was doing you the most enormous favour and that you’d be sure to repay me some day?’

‘I believe so,’ came the languid reply in a silk dressing gown sort of voice. ‘What do you want – lunch?’

‘Oh, fiddlesticks to lunch. I want a proper favour.’

‘Oh, bother,’ Coward commented as if to himself. ‘I have the strangest idea that I’m not going to like this. What is it?’

So she told him, whereupon there ensued another pause, though this one preceded by a sharp intake of breath.

‘You know, Olga,’ he said finally and rather viciously, ‘sometimes you can be so very, very cruel.’

T
he next morning brought the expected visit by the Padre, who presided over the spiritual welfare of his flock from the splendid Anglican church in the Church Square, its war memorial now sadly embellished by some additional names from a very recent conflict.

It was one of the many oddities of Tilling life that, crowded into a small distance of no more than about fifty yards, were not one but three places of worship, all of whom acted largely as though the others did not exist.

Across the road was the Methodist Chapel, from whence resounded on winter evenings rousing choruses of Gilbert and Sullivan, as the operatic society practised for their annual performance. On Sundays, well-scrubbed family groups of tradesmen and boatmen, stiffly uncomfortable in their Sunday best, went unsmilingly to their devotions. Their numbers were swollen occasionally by earnest-looking young men from South Wales clutching black bibles and in search of well-scrubbed daughters of tradesmen and boatmen with whom to discuss the finer points of the Ten Commandments over afternoon tea, though the seventh brought a sudden blush to maidenly cheeks and was usually passed over quickly with mutters and bowed heads.