by E. F. Benson
‘I can’t quite hear you,’ said Georgie.
Lucia raised her voice.
‘I shall buy a season ticket for the exhibition,’ she shouted, ‘and go there every day. Believe me, that’s the only way to take it. They don’t want our pictures, but we mustn’t be small about it. Dignity, Georgie.’
There was nothing to add to so sublime a declaration and Lucia went across to the bow-window, looking down the street. At that moment the Wyses’ Royce lurched out of Porpoise Street, and turned down towards the High Street. Lucia knew they were both on the hanging committee which had just rejected one of her own most successful sketches (for the crooked chimney had turned out beautifully), but she felt not the smallest resentment towards them. No doubt they had acted quite conscientiously and she waved her hand in answer to a flutter of sables from the interior of the car. Presently she went down herself to the High Street to hear the news of the morning, and there was the Wyses’ car drawn up in front of Wasters. She remembered then that the hanging committee met this morning, and a suspicion, too awful to be credible, flashed through her mind. But she thrust it out, as being unworthy of entertainment by a clean mind. She did her shopping and on her return took down a pale straw-coloured sketch by Miss Mapp that hung in the garden-room, and put in its place her picture of Mallards Cottage and the crooked chimney. Then she called to mind that powerful platitude, and said to herself that time would show…
Miss Mapp had not intended to be present at the desecration of her garden by paupers from the workhouse and such low haunts. She had consulted her solicitor, about her power to stop the entertainment, but he assured her that there was no known statute in English law, which enabled her to prevent her tenant giving a party. So she determined, in the manner of Lucia and the Elizabethan fête at Riseholme, to be unaware of it, not to know that any fête was contemplated, and never afterwards to ask a single question about it. But as the day approached she suspected that the hot tide of curiosity, rapidly rising in her, would probably end by swamping and submerging her principles. She had seen the Padre dressed in a long black cloak, and carrying an axe of enormous size, entering Mallards; she had seen Diva come out in a white satin gown and scuttle down the street to Taormina, and those two prodigies taken together suggested that the execution of Mary Queen of Scots was in hand. (Diva as the Queen!) She had seen boards and posts carried in by the garden-door and quantities of red cloth, so there was perhaps to be a stage for these tableaux. More intriguing yet was the apparition of Major Benjy carrying a cardboard crown glittering with gold paper. What on earth did that portend? Then there was her fruit to give an eye to: those choir-boys, scampering all over the garden in the intervals between their glees, would probably pick every pear from the tree. She starved to know what was going on, but since she avoided all mention of the fête herself, others were most amazingly respectful to her reticence. She knew nothing, she could only make these delirious guesses, and there was that Lucia, being the centre of executioners and queens and choir-boys, instead of in her proper place, made much of by kind Miss Mapp, and enjoying such glimpses of Tilling society as she chose to give her. ‘A fortnight ago,’ thought kind Miss Mapp, ‘I was popping in and out of the house, and she was Lulu. Anyhow, that was a nasty one she got over her picture, and I must bear her no grudge. I shall go to the fête because I can’t help it, and I shall be very cordial to her and admire her tableaux. We’re all Christians together, and I despise smallness.’
It was distressing to be asked to pay half a crown for admittance to her own Mallards, but there seemed positively no other way to get past Grosvenor. Very distressing, too, it was, to see Lucia in full fig as Queen Elizabeth, graciously receiving newcomers on the edge of the lawn, precisely as if this was her party and these people who had paid half a crown to come in, her invited guests. It was a bitter thought that it ought to be herself who (though not dressed in all that flummery, so unconvincing by daylight) welcomed the crowd; for to whom, pray, did Mallards belong, and who had allowed it (since she could not stop it) to be thrown open? At the bottom of the steps into the garden-room was a large placard ‘Private’, but of course that would not apply to her. Through the half-opened door, as she passed, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure, though sadly travestied, sitting in a robe and a golden crown and pouring something into a glass: no doubt then the garden-room was the green-room of performers in the tableaux, who, less greedy of publicity than Lulu, hid themselves here till the time of their exposure brought them out. She would go in there presently, but her immediate duty, bitter but necessary, was to greet her hostess. With a very happy inspiration she tripped up to Lucia and dropped a low curtsey.
‘Your Majesty’s most obedient humble servant,’ she said, and then trusting that Lucia had seen that this obeisance was made in a mocking spirit, abounded in geniality.
‘My dear, what a love of a costume!’ she said. ‘And what a lovely day for your fête! And what a crowd! How the half-crowns have been pouring in! All Tilling seems to be here, and I’m sure I don’t wonder.’
Lucia rivalled these cordialities with equal fervour and about as much sincerity.
‘Elizabeth! How nice of you to look in!’ she said. ‘Ecco, le due Elizabethe! And you like my frock? Sweet of you! Yes. Tilling has indeed come to the aid of the hospital! And your jumble-sale too was a wonderful success, was it not? Nothing left, I am told.’
Miss Mapp had a moment’s hesitation as to whether she should not continue to stand by Lucia and shake hands with new arrivals and give them a word of welcome, but she decided she could do more effective work if she made herself independent and played hostess by herself. Also this mention of the jumble-sale made her slightly uneasy. Withers had told her that Georgie had bought his own picture of the Landgate from the sixpenny tray, and Lucia (for all her cordiality) might be about to spring some horrid trap on her about it.
‘Yes, indeed,’ she said. ‘My little sale-room was soon as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. But I mustn’t monopolize you, dear, or I shall be lynched. There’s a whole queue of people waiting to get a word with you. How I shall enjoy the tableaux! Looking forward to them so!’
She sidled off into the crowd. There were those dreadful old wretches from the workhouse, snuffy old things, some of them smoking pipes on her lawn and scattering matches, and being served with tea by Irene and the Padre’s curate.
‘So pleased to see you all here,’ she said, ‘sitting in my garden and enjoying your tea. I must pick a nice nosegay for you to take back home. How de do, Mr Sturgis. Delighted you could come and help to entertain the old folks for us. Good afternoon, Mr Wyse; yes, my little garden is looking nice, isn’t it? Susan, dear! Have you noticed my bed of delphiniums? I must give you some seed. Oh, there is the town-crier ringing his bell! I suppose that means we must take our places for the tableaux. What a good stage! I hope the posts will not have made very big holes in my lawn. Oh, one of those naughty choir-boys is hovering about my fig-tree. I cannot allow that.’
She hurried off to stop any possibility of such depredation, and had made some telling allusions to the eighth commandment when on a second peal of the town-crier’s bell, the procession of mummers came down the steps of the garden-room and advancing across the lawn disappeared behind the stage. Poor Major Benjy (so weak of him to allow himself to be dragged into this sort of thing) looked a perfect guy in his crown (who could he be meant for?) and as for Diva—Then there was Georgie (Drake indeed!), and last of all Queen Elizabeth with her train held up by two choir-boys. Poor Lucia! Not content with a week of mumming at Riseholme she had to go on with her processions and dressings-up here. Some people lived on limelight.
Miss Mapp could not bring herself to take a seat close to the stage, and be seen applauding—there seemed to be some hitch with the curtain: no, it righted itself, what a pity!—and she hung about on the outskirts of the audience. Glees were interposed between the tableaux; how thin were the voices of those little boys out of doors! Then I
rene, dressed like a sailor, recited that ludicrous parody. Roars of laughter. Then Major Benjy was King Cophetua: that was why he had a crown. Oh dear, oh dear! It was sad to reflect that an elderly, sensible man (for when at his best, he was that) could be got hold of by a pushing woman. The final tableau, of course (anyone might have guessed that), was the knighting of Drake by Queen Elizabeth. Then amid sycophantic applause the procession of guys returned and went back into the garden-room. Mr and Mrs Wyse followed them, and it seemed pretty clear that they were going to have a private tea there. Doubtless she would be soon sought for among the crowd with a message from Lucia to hope that she would join them in her own garden-room, but as nothing of the sort came, she presently thought that it would be only kind to Lucia to do so, and add her voice to the general chorus of congratulation that was no doubt going on. So with a brisk little tap on the door, and the inquiry ‘May I come in?’ she entered.
There they all were, as pleased as children with dressing-up. King Cophetua still wore his crown, tilted slightly to one side like a forage cap, and he and Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were seated round the tea-table and calling each other your Majesty. King Cophetua had a large whisky and soda in front of him and Miss Mapp felt quite certain it was not his first. But though sick in soul at these puerilities she pulled herself together and made a beautiful curtsey to the silly creatures. And the worst of it was that there was no one left of her own intimate circle to whom she could in private express her disdain, for they were all in it, either actively or, like the Wyses, truckling to Lucia.
Lucia for the moment seemed rather surprised to see her, but she welcomed her and poured her out a cup of rather tepid tea, nasty to the taste. She must truckle, too, to the whole lot of them, though that tasted nastier than the tea.
‘How I congratulate you all,’ she cried. ‘Padre, you looked too cruel as executioner, your mouth so fixed and stern. It was quite a relief when the curtain came down. Irene, quaint one, how you made them laugh! Diva, Mr Georgie, and above all our wonderful Queen Lucia. What a treat it has all been! The choir! Those beautiful glees. A thousand pities, Mr Wyse, that the Contessa was not here.’
There was still Susan to whom she ought to say something pleasant, but positively she could not go on, until she had eaten something solid. But Lucia chimed in.
‘And your garden, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘How they are enjoying it. I believe if the truth was known they are all glad that our little tableaux are over, so that they can wander about and admire the flowers. I must give a little party some night soon with Chinese lanterns and fairy-lights in the beds.’
‘Upon my word, your Majesty is spoiling us all,’ said Major Benjy. ‘Tilling’s never had a month with so much pleasure provided for it. Glorious.’
Miss Mapp had resolved to stop here if it was anyhow possible, till these sycophants had dispersed, and then have one private word with Lucia to indicate how ready she was to overlook all the little frictions that had undoubtedly arisen. She fully meant, without eating a morsel of humble pie herself, to allow Lucia to eat proud pie, for she saw that just for the present she herself was nowhere and Lucia everywhere. So Lucia should glut herself into a sense of complete superiority, and then it would be time to begin fresh manoeuvres. Major Benjy and Diva soon took themselves off: she saw them from the garden-window going very slowly down the street, ever so pleased to have people staring at them, and Irene, at the Padre’s request, went out to dance a hornpipe on the lawn in her sailor clothes. But the two Wyses (always famous for sticking) remained and Georgie.
Mr Wyse got up from the tea-table and passed round behind Miss Mapp’s chair. Out of the corner of her eye she could see he was looking at the wall where a straw-coloured picture of her own hung. He always used to admire it, and it was pleasant to feel that he was giving it so careful and so respectful a scrutiny. Then he spoke to Lucia.
‘How well I remember seeing you painting that,’ he said, ‘and how long I took to forgive myself for having disturbed you in my blundering car. A perfect little masterpiece, Mallards Cottage and the crooked chimney. To the life.’
Susan heaved herself up from the sofa and joined in the admiration.
‘Perfectly delightful,’ she said. ‘The lights, the shadows. Beautiful! What a touch!’
Miss Mapp turned her head slowly as if she had a stiff neck, and verified her awful conjecture that it was no longer a picture of her own that hung there, but the very picture of Lucia’s which had been rejected for the Art Exhibition. She felt as if no picture but a bomb hung there, which might explode at some chance word, and blow her into a thousand fragments. It was best to hurry from this perilous neighbourhood.
‘Dear Lucia,’ she said, ‘I must be off. Just one little stroll, if I may, round my garden, before I go home. My roses will never forgive me, if I go away without noticing them.’
She was too late.
‘How I wish I had known it was finished!’ said Mr Wyse. ‘I should have begged you to allow us to have it for our Art Exhibition. It would have been the gem of it. Cruel of you, Mrs Lucas!’
‘But I sent it in to the hanging committee,’ said Lucia. ‘Georgie sent his, too, of Mallards. They were both sent back to us.’
Mr Wyse turned from the picture to Lucia with an expression of incredulous horror, and Miss Mapp quietly turned to stone.
‘But impossible,’ he said. ‘I am on the hanging committee myself, and I hope you cannot think I should have been such an imbecile. Susan is on the committee too: so is Miss Mapp. In fact, we are the hanging committee. Susan, that gem, that little masterpiece never came before us.’
‘Never,’ said Susan. ‘Never. Never, never.’
Mr Wyse’s eye transferred itself to Miss Mapp. She was still stone and her face was as white as the wall of Mallards Cottage in the masterpiece. Then for the first time in the collective memory of Tilling Mr Wyse allowed himself to use slang.
‘There has been some hanky-panky,’ he said. ‘That picture never came before the hanging committee.’
The stone image could just move its eyes and they looked, in a glassy manner, at Lucia. Lucia’s met them with one short gimlet thrust, and she whisked round to Georgie. Her face was turned away from the others, and she gave him a prodigious wink, as he sat there palpitating with excitement.
‘Georgino mio,’ she said. ‘Let us recall exactly what happened. The morning, I mean, when the hanging committee met. Let me see: let me see. Don’t interrupt me: I will get it all clear.’
Lucia pressed her hands to her forehead.
‘I have it,’ she said. ‘It is perfectly vivid to me now. You had taken our little pictures down to the framer’s, Georgie, and told him to send them in to Elizabeth’s house direct. That was it. The errand-boy from the framer’s came up here that very morning, and delivered mine to Grosvenor, and yours to Foljambe. Let me think exactly when that was. What time was it, Mr Wyse, that the hanging committee met?’
‘At twelve, precisely,’ said Mr Wyse.
‘That fits in perfectly,’ said Lucia. ‘I called to Georgie out of the window here, and we told each other that our pictures had been rejected. A moment later, I saw your car go down to the High Street and when I went down there soon afterwards, it was standing in front of Miss—I mean Elizabeth’s house. Clearly what happened was that the framer misunderstood Georgie’s instructions, and returned the pictures to us before the hanging committee sat at all. So you never saw them, and we imagined all the time—did we not, Georgie?—that you had simply sent them back.’
‘But what must you have thought of us?’ said Mr Wyse, with a gesture of despair.
‘Why, that you did not conscientiously think very much of our art,’ said Lucia. ‘We were perfectly satisfied with your decision. I felt sure that my little picture had a hundred faults and feeblenesses.’
Miss Mapp had become unpetrified. Could it be that by some miraculous oversight she had not put into those parcels the formal, typewritten rejection of the committee? I
t did not seem likely, for she had a very vivid remembrance of the gratification it gave her to do so, but the only alternative theory was to suppose a magnanimity on Lucia’s part which seemed even more miraculous. She burst into speech.
‘How we all congratulate ourselves,’ she cried, ‘that it has all been cleared up! Such a stupid errand-boy! What are we to do next, Mr Wyse? Our exhibition must secure Lucia’s sweet picture, and of course Mr Pillson’s too. But how are we to find room for them? Everything is hung.’
‘Nothing easier,’ said Mr Wyse. ‘I shall instantly withdraw my paltry little piece of still-life, and I am sure that Susan—’
‘No, that would never do,’ said Miss Mapp, currying favour all round. ‘That beautiful wallflower, I could almost smell it: that King of Italy. Mine shall go: two or three of mine. I insist on it.’
Mr Wyse bowed to Lucia and then to Georgie.
‘I have a plan better yet,’ he said. ‘Let us put—if we may have the privilege of securing what was so nearly lost to our exhibition—let us put these two pictures on easels as showing how deeply we appreciate our good fortune in getting them.’
He bowed to his wife, he bowed—was it quite a bow?—to Miss Mapp, and had there been a mirror, he would no doubt have bowed to himself.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘our little sketches will not thus suffer so much from their proximity to—’ and he bowed to Lucia. ‘And if Mr Pillson will similarly allow us—’ he bowed to Georgie.
Georgie, following Lucia’s lead, graciously offered to go round to the Cottage and bring back his picture of Mallards, but Mr Wyse would not hear of such a thing. He and Susan would go off in the Royce now, with Lucia’s masterpiece, and fetch Georgie’s from Mallards Cottage, and the sun should not set before they both stood on their distinguished easels in the enriched exhibition. So off they went in a great hurry to procure the easels before the sun went down and Miss Mapp, unable alone to face the reinstated victims of her fraud, scurried after them in a tumult of mixed emotions. Outside in the garden Irene, dancing hornpipes, was surrounded by both sexes of the enraptured youth of Tilling, for the boys knew she was a girl, and the girls thought she looked so like a boy. She shouted out ‘Come and dance, Mapp,’ and Elizabeth fled from her own sweet garden as if it had been a plague-stricken area, and never spoke to her roses at all.
