Lucia Victrix

by E. F. Benson

  She turned her thoughts towards Elizabeth Mapp. During those ten days before Lucia had gone to Riseholme for the fête, she had popped in every single day: it was quite obvious that Elizabeth was keeping her eye on her. She always had some glib excuse: she wanted a hot-water bottle, or a thimble or a screw-driver that she had forgotten to take away, and declining all assistance would go to look for them herself, feeling sure that she could put her hand on them instantly without troubling anybody. She would go into the kitchen wreathed in smiles and pleasant observations for Lucia’s cook, she would pop into the servants’ hall and say something agreeable to Cadman, and pry into cupboards to find what she was in search of. (It was during one of these expeditions that she had discovered her dearest mamma’s piano in the telephone-room.) Often she came in without knocking or ringing the bell, and then if Lucia or Grosvenor heard her clandestine entry, and came to see who it was, she scolded herself for her stupidity in not remembering that for the present, this was not her house. So forgetful of her.

  On one of these occasions she had popped out into the garden, and found Lucia eating a fig from the tree that grew against the garden-room, and was covered with fruit.

  ‘Oh, you dear thief!’ she said. ‘What about garden-produce?’

  Then seeing Lucia’s look of blank amazement, she had given a pretty peal of laughter.

  ‘Lulu, dear! Only my joke,’ she cried. ‘Poking a little fun at Queen Elizabeth. You may eat every fig in my garden, and I wish there were more of them.’

  On another occasion Elizabeth had found Major Benjy having tea with Lucia, and she had said, ‘Oh, how disappointed I am! I had so hoped to introduce you to each other, and now someone else has taken that treat from me. Who was the naughty person?’ But perhaps that was a joke too. Lucia was not quite sure that she liked Elizabeth’s jokes, any more than she liked her informal visits.

  This morning, Lucia cast an eye over her garden. The lawn badly wanted cutting, the flower-beds wanted weeding, the box-edgings to them wanted clipping, and it struck her that the gardener, whose wages she paid, could not have done an hour’s work here since she left. He was never in this part of the garden at all, she seemed to remember, but was always picking fruit and vegetables in the kitchen-garden, or digging over the asparagus-bed, or potting chrysanthemums, or doing other jobs that did not concern her own interests but Elizabeth’s. There he was now, a nice genial man, preparing a second basketful of garden-produce to take to the greengrocer’s, from whom eventually Lucia bought it. An inquiry must instantly be held.

  ‘Good morning, Coplen,’ she said. ‘I want you to cut the lawn to-day. It’s got dreadfully long.’

  ‘Very sorry, ma’am,’ said he. ‘I don’t think I can find time to-day myself. I could get a man in perhaps to do it.’

  ‘I should prefer that you should,’ said Lucia. ‘You can get a man in to pick those vegetables.’

  ‘It’s not only them,’ he said. ‘Miss Mapp she told me to manure the strawberry-beds to-day.’

  ‘But what has Miss Mapp got to do with it?’ said she. ‘You’re in my employment.’

  ‘Well, that does only seem fair,’ said the impartial Coplen. ‘But you see, ma’am, my orders are to go to Miss Mapp every morning and she tells me what she wants done.’

  ‘Then for the future please come to me every morning and see what I want done,’ she said. ‘Finish what you’re at now, and then start on the lawn at once. Tell Miss Mapp by all means that I’ve given you these instructions. And no strawberry-bed shall be manured to-day, nor indeed until my garden looks less like a tramp who hasn’t shaved for a week.’

  Supported by an impregnable sense of justice but still dangerously fuming, Lucia went back to her garden-room, to tranquillize herself with an hour’s practice on the new piano. Very nice tone; she and Georgie would be able to start their musical hours again now. This afternoon, perhaps, if he felt up to it after the tragic news, a duet might prove tonic. Not a note had she played during that triumphant week at Riseholme. Scales first then, and presently she was working away at a new Mozart, which she and Georgie would subsequently read over together.

  There came a tap at the door of the garden-room. It opened a chink, and Elizabeth in her sweetest voice said:

  ‘May I pop in once more, dear?’

  Elizabeth was out of breath. She had hurried up from the High Street.

  ‘So sorry to interrupt your sweet music, Lucia mia,’ she said. ‘What a pretty tune! What fingers you have! But my good Coplen has come to me in great perplexity. So much better to clear it up at once, I thought, so I came instantly though rather rushed to-day. A little misunderstanding, no doubt. Coplen is not clever.’

  Elizabeth seemed to be labouring under some excitement which might account for this loss of wind. So Lucia waited till she was more controlled.

  ‘– And your new piano, dear?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘You like it? It sounded so sweet, though not quite the tone of dearest mamma’s. About Coplen then?’

  ‘Yes, about Coplen,’ said Lucia.

  ‘He misunderstood, I am sure, what you said to him just now. So distressed he was. Afraid I should be vexed with him. I said I would come to see you and make it all right.’

  ‘Nothing easier, dear,’ said Lucia. ‘We can put it all right in a minute. He told me he had not time to cut the lawn to-day because he had to manure your strawberry-beds, and I said “The lawn please, at once,” or words to that effect. He didn’t quite grasp, I think, that he’s in my employment, so naturally I reminded him of it. He understands now, I hope.’

  Elizabeth looked rather rattled at these energetic remarks, and Lucia saw at once that this was the stuff to give her.

  ‘But my garden-produce, you know, dear Lulu,’ said Elizabeth. ‘It is not much use to me if all those beautiful pears are left to rot on the trees till the wasps eat them.’

  ‘No doubt that is so,’ said Lucia; ‘but Coplen, whose wages I pay, is no use to me if he spends his entire time in looking after your garden-produce. I pay for his time, dear Elizabeth, and I intend to have it. He also told me he took his orders every morning from you. That won’t do at all. I shan’t permit that for a moment. If I had engaged your cook as well as your gardener, I should not allow her to spend her day in roasting mutton for you. So that’s all settled.’

  It was borne in upon Elizabeth that she hadn’t got a leg to stand upon and she sat down.

  ‘Lulu,’ she said, ‘anything would be better than that I should have a misunderstanding with such a dear as you are. I won’t argue, I won’t put my point of view at all. I yield. There! If you can spare Coplen for an hour in the morning to take my little fruits and vegetables to the greengrocer’s I should be glad.’

  ‘Quite impossible, I’m afraid, dear Elizabeth,’ said Lucia with the greatest cordiality. ‘Coplen has been neglecting the flower-garden dreadfully, and for the present it will take him all his time to get it tidy again. You must get someone else to do that.’

  Elizabeth looked quite awful for a moment: then her face was wreathed in smiles again.

  ‘Precious one!’ she said. ‘It shall be exactly as you wish. Now I must run away. Au reservoir. You’re not free, I suppose, this evening to have a little dinner with me? I would ask Major Benjy to join us, and our beloved Diva, who has a passion, positively a passion for you. Major Benjy indeed too. He raves about you. Wicked woman, stealing all the hearts of Tilling.’

  Lucia felt positively sorry for the poor thing. Before she left for Riseholme last week, she had engaged Diva and Major Benjy to dine with her to-night, and it was quite incredible that Elizabeth, by this time, should not have known that.

  ‘Sweet of you,’ she said, ‘but I have a tiny little party myself to-night. Just one or two, dropping in.’

  Elizabeth lingered a moment yet, and Lucia said to herself that the thumb-screw and the rack would not induce her to ask Elizabeth, however long she lingered.

  Lucia and she exchanged kissings of the hand as Elizabet
h emerged from the front door, and tripped down the street. ‘I see I must be a little firm with her,’ thought Lucia, ‘and when I’ve taught her her place, then it will be time to be kind. But I won’t ask her to dinner just yet. She must learn not to ask me when she knows I’m engaged. And she shall not pop in without ringing. I must tell Grosvenor to put the door on the chain.’

  Lucia returned to her practice, but shovelled the new Mozart out of sight, when, in one of her glances out of the open window, she observed Georgie coming up the street, on his way from the station. He had a light and airy step, evidently he was in the best of spirits and he waved to her as he caught sight of her.

  ‘Just going to look in at the cottage one second,’ he called out, ‘to see that everything’s all right, and then I’ll come and have a chat before lunch. Heaps to tell you.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Lucia, ruefully thinking what one of those things was. ‘Hurry up, Georgie.’

  He tripped along up to the cottage, and Lucia’s heart was wrung for him, for all that gaiety would soon suffer a total eclipse, and she was to be the darkener of his day. Had she better tell him instantly, she wondered, or hear his news first, and outline the recent Manoeuvres of Mapp. These exciting topics might prove tonic, something to fall back on afterwards. Whereas, if she stabbed him straight away, they would be of no service as restoratives. Also there was stewed lobster for lunch, and Georgie who adored it would probably not care a bit about it if the blow fell first.

  Georgie began to speak almost before he opened the door.

  ‘All quite happy at the cottage,’ he said, ‘and Foljambe ever so pleased with Tilling. Everything in spick-and-span order and my paint-box cleaned up and the hole in the carpet mended quite beautifully. She must have been busy while I was away.’

  (‘Dear, oh dear, she has,’ thought Lucia.)

  ‘And everything settled at Riseholme,’ continued poor Georgie. ‘Colonel Cresswell wants my house for three months, so I said yes, and now we’re both homeless for October, unless we keep on our houses here. I had to put on my Drake clothes again yesterday, for the Birmingham Gazette wanted to photograph me. My dear, what a huge success it all was, but I’m glad to get away, for everything will be as flat as ditchwater now, all except Daisy. She began to buck up at once the moment you left, and I positively heard her say how quickly you picked up the part of the Queen after watching her once or twice.’

  ‘No! Poor thing!’ said Lucia with deep compassion.

  ‘Now tell me all about Tilling,’ said Georgie, feeling he must play fair.

  ‘Things are beginning to move, Georgie,’ said she, forgetting for the time the impending tragedy. ‘Nightmarches, Georgie, manoeuvres. Elizabeth, of course. I’m sure I was right, she wants to run me, and if she can’t (if!) she’ll try to fight me. I can see glimpses of hatred and malice in her.’

  ‘And you’ll fight her?’ asked Georgie eagerly.

  ‘Nothing of the kind, my dear,’ said Lucia. ‘What do you take me for? Every now and then, when necessary, I shall just give her two or three hard slaps. I gave her one this morning: I did indeed. Not a very hard one, but it stung.’

  ‘No! Do tell me,’ said Georgie.

  Lucia gave a short but perfectly accurate description of the gardener-crisis.

  ‘So I stopped that,’ she said, ‘and there are several other things I shall stop. I won’t have her, for instance, walking into my house without ringing. So I’ve told Grosvenor to put up the chain. And she calls me Lulu which makes me sick. Nobody’s ever called me Lulu and they shan’t begin now. I must see if calling her Liblib will do the trick. And then she asked me to dinner to-night, when she must have known perfectly well that Major Benjy and Diva are dining with me. You’re dining too, by the way.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I’d better,’ said Georgie. ‘I think Foljambe might expect me to dine at home the first night I get back. I know she wants to go through the linen and plate with me.’

  ‘No, Georgie, quite unnecessary,’ said she. ‘I want you to help me to give the others a jolly comfortable evening. We’ll play bridge and let Major Benjy lay down the law. We’ll have a genial evening, make them enjoy it. And to-morrow I shall ask the Wyses and talk about Countesses. And the day after I shall ask the Padre and his wife and talk Scotch. I want you to come every night. It’s new in Tilling I find, to give little dinners. Tea is the usual entertainment. And I shan’t ask Liblib at all till next week.’

  ‘But my dear, isn’t that war?’ asked Georgie. (It did look rather like it.)

  ‘Not the least. It’s benevolent neutrality. We shall see if she learns sense. If she does, I shall be very nice to her again and ask her to several pleasant little parties. I am giving her every chance. Also Georgie …’ Lucia’s eyes assumed that gimlet-like expression which betokened an earnest purpose, ‘I want to understand her and be fair to her. At present I can’t understand her. The idea of her giving orders to a gardener to whom I give wages! But that’s all done with. I can hear the click of the mowing-machine on the lawn now. Just two or three things I won’t stand. I won’t be patronized by Liblib, and I won’t be called Lulu, and I won’t have her popping in and out of my house like a cuckoo clock.’

  Lunch drew to an end. There was Georgie looking so prosperous and plump, with his chestnut-coloured hair no longer in the least need of a touch of dye, and his beautiful clothes. Already Major Benjy, who had quickly seen that if he wanted to be friends with Lucia he must be friends with Georgie too, had pronounced him to be the best-dressed man in Tilling, and Lucia, who invariably passed on dewdrops of this kind, had caused Georgie the deepest gratification by repeating this. And now she was about to plunge a dagger in his heart. She put her elbows on the table, so as to be ready to lay a hand of sympathy on his.

  ‘Georgie, I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure I shall like it,’ said he. ‘Go on.’

  ‘No, you won’t like it at all,’ she said.

  It flashed through his mind that Lucia had changed her mind about marrying him, but it could not be that, for she would never have said he wouldn’t like it at all. Then he had a flash of intuition.

  ‘Something about Foljambe,’ he said in a quavering voice.

  ‘Yes. She and Cadman are going to marry.’

  Georgie turned on her a face from which all other expression except hopeless despair had vanished, and her hand of sympathy descended on his, firmly pressing it.

  ‘When?’ he said, after moistening his dry lips.

  ‘Not for the present. Not till we get back to Riseholme.’

  Georgie pushed away his untasted coffee.

  ‘It’s the most dreadful thing that’s ever happened to me,’ he said. ‘It’s quite spoiled all my pleasure. I didn’t think Foljambe was so selfish. She’s been with me fifteen years, and now she goes and breaks up my home like this.’

  ‘My dear, that’s rather an excessive statement,’ said Lucia. ‘You can get another parlourmaid. There are others.’

  ‘If you come to that, Cadman could get another wife,’ said Georgie, ‘and there isn’t another parlourmaid like Foljambe. I have suspected something now and then, but I never thought it would come to this. What a fool I was to leave her here when I went back to Riseholme for the fête! Or if only we had driven back there with Cadman instead of going by train. It was madness. Here they were with nothing to do but make plans behind our backs. No one will ever look after my clothes as she does. And the silver. You’ll miss Cadman, too.’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t think he means to leave me,’ said Lucia in some alarm. ‘What makes you think that? He said nothing about it.’

  ‘Then perhaps Foljambe doesn’t mean to leave me,’ said Georgie, seeing a possible dawn on the wreck of his home.

  ‘That’s rather different,’ said Lucia. ‘She’ll have to look after his house, you see, by day, and then at night he’d – he’d like her to be there.’

  ‘Horrible to think of,’ said Georgie bitte
rly. ‘I wonder what she can see in him. I’ve got a good mind to go and live in an hotel. And I had left her five hundred pounds in my will.’

  ‘Georgie, that was very generous of you. Very,’ put in Lucia, though Georgie would not feel the loss of that large sum after he was dead.

  ‘But now I shall certainly add a codicil to say “if still in my service”,’ said Georgie rather less generously. ‘I didn’t think it of her.’

  Lucia was silent a moment. Georgie was taking it very much to heart indeed, and she racked her ingenious brain.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said at length. ‘I don’t know if it can be worked, but we might see. Would you feel less miserable about it if Foljambe would consent to come over to your house say at nine in the morning and be there till after dinner? If you were dining out as you so often are, she could go home earlier. You see Cadman’s at the Hurst all day, for he does odd jobs as well, and his cottage at Riseholme is quite close to your house. You would have to give them a charwoman to do the housework.’

  ‘Oh, that is a good idea,’ said Georgie, cheering up a little. ‘Of course I’ll give her a charwoman or anything else she wants if she’ll only look after me as before. She can sleep wherever she likes. Of course there may be periods when she’ll have to be away, but I shan’t mind that as long as I know she’s coming back. Besides, she’s rather old for that, isn’t she?’

  It was no use counting the babies before they were born, and Lucia glided along past this slightly indelicate subject with Victorian eyes.