Lucia Victrix (87 page)

‘That accounts for it,' interrupted Diva and Susan simultaneously.

‘– and Elizabeth rang me up at breakfast and asked to give orders that the Corporation plate should be ready for her little friend's inspection this morning at 10.30. And the Mayor's book for her to sign.'

‘Well, I never!' said Diva. ‘And the church bells ringing, I suppose. And the Town Band playing the Italian National Anthem for Rudolph da Vinci. What did you say?'

‘Very polite regrets.'

Irene's voice from a few yards away, loud and emphatic, broke in on their conversation.

‘No, Mapp!' she cried. ‘I will not come to the exhibition to show you and your friend – I didn't catch her name – my pictures. And I can't bear being looked over when I'm sketching. Trot along.'

There seemed nothing else for them to do, and Lucia walked on to Irene.

‘Did you hear?' asked Irene. ‘I sent Mapp and her friend about their business. Who is the little guy?'

‘A Miss Leg, I am told,' said Lucia. ‘She writes novels
under some foreign name. Elizabeth's tenant: she seems to have taken her up with great warmth.'

‘Poor wretch. Mapp-kissed, like raisins. But the most exciting news, beloved. The Directors of the Carlton Gallery in Bond Street have asked me if I will let them have my Venus for their autumn exhibition. Also an inquiry from an American collector, if it's for sale. I'm asking a thumping price for it. But I shall show it at the Carlton first, and I shall certainly put back Mapp's rouge and her cocotte smile. May I come up presently to Mallards?'

‘Do dear. I have a little leisure this morning.'

Lucia passed on with that ever-recurring sense of regret that Irene had not painted her on the oyster-shell and Georgie in the clouds, and, having finished her shopping, strolled home by the Town Hall. The Serjeant was standing on the steps, looking a little flushed.

‘The Mayoress and a friend have just been here, Your Worship,' he said. ‘She told me to get out the Corporation plate and Your Worship's book. I said I couldn't without direct orders from you. She was a bit threatening.'

‘You did quite right, Serjeant,' said Lucia very graciously. ‘The same reply always, please.'

Meantime Elizabeth and Miss Leg, having been thwarted at the Town Hall, passed on to the exhibition where Elizabeth demanded free admittance for her as a distinguished visitor. But the door-keeper was as firm as the Serjeant had been, and Elizabeth produced a sixpence and six coppers. They went first to look at the Venus, and Elizabeth had a most disagreeable surprise, for the eminent novelist highly disapproved of it.

‘An irreverent parody of that great Italian picture by Botticello,' she said. ‘And look at that old hag on the oyster-shell and that boozy navvy in a top-hat. Most shocking! I am astonished that you allowed it to be exhibited. And by that rude unsexed girl in shorts? Her manners and her painting are on a par.'

After this pronouncement Elizabeth did not feel equal to disclosing that she was the hag and Benjy the navvy, but she
was pleased that Miss Leg was so severe on the art of the rude girl in shorts, and took her to the portrait of Lucia.

‘There's another picture of Miss Coles's,' she said, ‘which is much worse than the other. Look: it reminds me of an auctioneer at a jumble-sale. Bicycle, piano, old packs of cards, paint-box –'

Miss Leg burst into loud cries of pleasure and admiration.

‘A magnificent work!' she said. ‘That's something to look at. Glorious colour, wonderful composition. And what an interesting face. Who is it?'

‘Our Mayor: our dear Lucia whom we chatted about last night,' said Elizabeth.

‘Your chat misled me. That woman has great character. Please ask her to meet me, and the artist too. She has real talent in spite of her other picture. I could dine with you this evening: just a plain little meal as we had last night. I never mind what I eat. Or tea. Tea would suit me as well.'

Agitated thoughts darted through the Mayoress's mind. She was still desperately anxious to retain her proprietary rights over Miss Leg, but another plain little meal could not be managed. Moreover it could not be expected that even the most exalted Christian should forgive, to the extent of asking Lucia to dinner, her monstrous rudeness about the Corporation plate and the Mayor's book, and it would take a very good Christian to forgive Irene. Tea was as far as she could go, and there was always the hope that they would refuse.

‘Alas, Benjy and I are both engaged to-night,' she said. ‘But I'll ask them to tea as soon as I get home.'

They strayed round the rest of the gallery: the misty morning on the marsh, Elizabeth thought, looked very full of poetry.

‘The usual little local daubs,' observed Miss Leg, walking by it without a glance. But the hollyhocks are charming, and so are the dahlias. By Miss Coles, too, I suppose.'

Elizabeth simply could not bear that she should know who the artist was.

‘She does exquisite flower-studies,' she said.

Irene was in the garden-room with Lucia when Elizabeth's call came through.

‘Just been to the exhibition, dear Worship, with Miss Leg. She's so anxious to know you and quaint Irene. Would you pop in for a cup of tea this afternoon? She will be there.'

‘So kind!' said Lucia. ‘I must consult my engagement-book.'

She covered the receiver with her hand, and thought intensely for a moment.

‘Irene,' she whispered. ‘Elizabeth asks us both to go to tea with her and meet Miss Leg. I think I won't. I don't want to get at her
via
Elizabeth. What about you?'

‘I don't want to get at Leg
via
anybody,' said Irene.

Lucia uncovered the receiver.

‘Alas!' she said. ‘As I feared I am engaged. And Irene is with me and regrets she can't come either. Such a pity. Good-bye.'

‘Why my regrets?' asked Irene. ‘And what's it all about?'

Lucia sighed. ‘All very tiresome,' she said, ‘but Elizabeth forces me, in mere self-defence, to descend to little schemings and intrigues. How it bores me!'

‘Darling, it's the breath of your life!' said Irene, ‘and you do it so beautifully!'

In the course of that day and the next Miss Leg found that she was not penetrating far into the life of Tilling. She attended shopping-parade next morning by herself. Diva and the Wyses were talking together, but gave her no more than cold polite smiles, and when she had passed, Irene joined them and there was laughter. Further on Lucia, whom she recognized from Irene's portrait was walking with a tall man with a Vandyck beard, whom she guessed to be the truant husband returned. Elizabeth was approaching, all smiles; surely they would have a few words together, and she would introduce them, but Lucia and the tall man instantly crossed the road. It was all very odd: Lucia and Irene would not come to tea at the Mapp-Flints, and the Wyses had not asked her to dinner, and Diva had refused to go to tea at Grebe, and Elizabeth had not produced the Corporation plate and the Mayor's book. She began to wonder whether the Mapp-Flints were not some
species of pariah whom nobody would know. This was a dreadful thought; perhaps she had got into wrong hands, and, while they clutched her, Tilling held aloof. She remembered quite a large percentage of Elizabeth's disparaging remarks about Lucia at the plain little meal, and of Benjy's comments on Georgie, and now they assumed a different aspect. Were they prompted by malice and jealousy, and impotence to climb into Tilling society? ‘I've not got any copy at present,' thought Miss Leg. ‘I must do something. Perhaps Mrs Mapp-Flint has had a past, though it doesn't look likely.'

It was a very hot day, and Georgie and Lucia settled to go bicycling after tea. The garden-room, till then, was the coolest place and after lunch they played the piano and sat in the window overlooking the street. He had had two lovely days at Riseholme, and enlarged on them with more enthusiasm than tact.

‘Olga was too wonderful,' he said. ‘Singing divinely and inspiring everybody. She enjoys herself simply by giving enjoyment to other people. A concert both evenings at seven, with the Spanish quartette and a few songs by Olga. Just an hour and a half and then a delicious supper in the garden, with everybody in Riseholme asked, and no Duchesses and things at all. Just for Riseholme: that's so like her: she doesn't know what the word ‘snob' means. And I had the room I had before, with a bathroom next door, and my breakfast on the balcony. And none of those plots and intrigues we used to be always embroiled in. It
was
a change.'

A certain stoniness had come into Lucia's face, which Georgie, fired with his subject, did not perceive.

‘And she asked down a lot of the supers from Covent Garden,' he went on, ‘and put them up at the Ambermere Arms. And her kindness to all her old friends: dull old me, for instance. She's taken a villa at Le Touquet now, and she's asked me there for a week. I shall cross from Seaport, and there are some wonderful anti-sick tablets –'

‘Did dearest Olga happen to mention if she was expecting me as well?' asked Lucia in a perfectly calm voice.

Georgie descended, like an aeroplane with engine-trouble, from these sunlit spaces. He made a bumpy landing.

‘I can't remember her doing so,' he said.

‘Not a thing you would be likely to forget,' said Lucia. ‘Your wonderful memory.'

‘I dare say she doesn't want to bother you with invitations,' said Georgie artfully. ‘You see, you did rub it in a good deal how difficult it was for you to get away, and how you had to bring tin boxes full of municipal papers with you.'

Lucia's face brightened.

‘Very likely that is it,' she said.

‘And you promised to spend Saturday till Monday with her a few weeks ago,' continued Georgie, ‘and then left on Sunday because of your Council meeting, and then you couldn't leave Tilling the other day because of Miss Leg. Olga's beginning to realize, don't you think, how busy you are – What's the matter?'

Lucia had sprung to her feet.

‘Leg's motor coming up the street,' she said. ‘Georgie, stand at the door, and, if I waggle my thumb at you, fly into the house and tell Grosvenor I'm at home. If I turn it down – those Roman gladiators – still fly, but tell her I'm out. It all depends on whether Elizabeth is with her. I'll explain afterwards.'

Lucia slid behind the window-curtain, and Georgie stood at the door, to fly. There came a violent waggling of his wife's thumb, and he sped into the house. He came flying back again, and Lucia motioned him to the piano, on the music-stand of which she had already placed a familiar Mozart duet. ‘Quick! Top of the page,' she said. ‘
Uno, due, tre
. Pom. Perfect!'

They played half a dozen brilliant bars, and Grosvenor opened the door and said, ‘Miss Leg.' Lucia took no notice but continued playing, till Grosvenor said ‘Miss Leg!' much louder, and then, with a musical exclamation of surprise, she turned and rose from her seat.

‘Ah, Miss Leg, so pleased!' she said, drawling frightfully. ‘How-de-do? Have you met Miss Leg, Georgie? Ah, yes, I think you saw her at Diva's one afternoon. Georgie, tell somebody that Miss Leg – you will, won't you – will stop to tea … My little garden-room, which you may have noticed from outside. I'm told that they call it the Star Chamber –'

Miss Leg looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting to see the hosts of heaven depicted there.

‘Indeed. Why do they call it that?' she asked.

Lucia had, of course, just invented that name for the garden-room herself. She waved her hand at the pile of Departmental tin boxes.

‘Secrets of municipal business,' she said lightly. ‘The Cabal, you know: Arlington, Bolingbroke … Shall we go out into the garden, until tea is ready? A tiny little plot, but so dear to me, the red-brick walls, the modest little house.'

‘You bought it quite lately from Mrs Mapp-Flint, I understand,' said Miss Leg.

Clever Lucia at once guessed that Elizabeth had given her version of that.

‘Yes, poor thing,' she said. ‘I was so glad to be able to get her out of her difficulties. It used to belong to an aunt of hers by marriage. What a state it was in! The garden a jungle of weeds, but I am reclaiming it. And here's my little secret garden: when I am here and the door is shut, I am not to be disturbed by anybody. Busy folk, like you and me, you with your marvellous creative work, and me with my life so full of interruptions, must have some inviolable sanctuary, must we not? … Some rather fine hollyhocks.'

‘Charming!' said Miss Leg, who was disposed to hate Lucia with her loftiness and her Star Chamber, but still thought she might be the Key to Tilling. ‘I have a veritable grove of them at my little cottage in the country. There was a beautiful study of hollyhocks at your little exhibition. By Miss Coles, I think Mrs Mapp-Flint said.'

Lucia laughed gaily.

‘Oh, my sweet, muddle-headed Mayoress!' she cried. ‘Georgie, did you hear? Elizabeth told Miss Leg that my picture of hollyhocks was by Irene. So like her. Tea ready?'

Harmony ripened. Miss Leg expressed her great admiration for Irene's portrait of Lucia, and her withering scorn for the Venus, and promised to pay another visit to study the features of the two principal figures: she had been so disgusted with the picture that one glance was enough. Before she had eaten her
second bun, Lucia had rung up the Serjeant at the Town Hall, and asked him to get out the Corporation plate and the Mayor's book, for she would be bringing round a distinguished visitor very shortly: and before Miss Leg had admired the plate and signed the book (‘Susan Leg' and below, ‘Rudolph da Vinci'), she had engaged herself to dine at Mallards next day. ‘Just a few friends,' said Lucia, ‘who would be so much honoured to meet you.' She did not ask Elizabeth and Benjy, for Miss Leg had seen so much of them lately, but, for fear they should feel neglected, she begged them to come in afterwards for a cup of coffee and a chat. Elizabeth interpreted this as an insult rather than an invitation, and she and Benjy had coffee and a vivacious chat by themselves.