by Tom Holt
‘Then why did he say “the Normans”?’ Diva persisted. ‘Why not the Tudors or the Stuarts?’
‘I believe my dear Susan is on the right track,’ said Mr. Wyse, ‘although I do not believe that she has arrived at the actual truth. Our English aristocracy, you must remember, is of Norman stock. The expression “the Normans” may therefore be a cunning periphrasis for “the nobility”, such is the subtlety of Mr. Pillson. Some connection with an exalted person or persons ....’
‘ ’Tes my opinion that our bonny Mayor has some historical project in her mind,’ intoned the Padre. In truth, he had no notion what Mr. Georgie’s remark could mean, but the linguistic possibilities of mediaeval vocabulary had excited him greatly. A copy of The Canterbury Tales was open on his desk and beside it a small exercise-book in which he was noting down the most quaint and archaic of Chaucer’s usages for possible inclusion in his own everyday speech.
‘Well, we’ll know soon enough,’ said Evie. ‘I’ve invited Lucia and Georgie to tea and they’ve accepted. But how thrilling! I can’t wait to find out what’s going on—Norman Tower or Royal Visit or aristocratic whatever.’ She did not include her husband’s pet theory for it was by definition too ludicrous to be taken seriously.
The door-bell rang and soon the Pillsons had joined the company. Georgie was wearing a new pair of trousers made of linen and the colour of terra-cotta. When he had tried them on in his dressing-room they had seemed to be the very essence of the Riviera; walking round Church Square, however, he had suffered a sudden loss of confidence in them and had wanted to go home and change but Lucia had been impatient to make her revelation and had assured him that they were perfect. But since nobody now seemed to have noticed them, the whole thing seemed a trifle academic ....
‘Padre! Evie dear! How kind of you. And so many dear friends all together in one place. No Elizabeth? But of course, they are on holiday. Such a curious time for a holiday, don’t you think—the end of January—and especially for a motor-tour, with snow forecast. What it is to be young and carefree! So sorry to keep you all waiting for your tea but mio caro sposo and I were held up—official business—too tedious for words.’ (Lucia had been at the Town Hall, but there had been nothing for her to do, as usual.)
‘Now then, Your Worship,’ demanded the Padre, ‘yon folk and I have a’ been on tenterhooks tae learn just what it was your mon meant by “the Normans”. Ye’ll pardon my bluntness but will ye no tell us the truth on’t?’
Lucia laughed a silvery laugh and lightly slapped Georgie across the back of his hand. Georgie blushed until his face matched the colour of his trousers.
‘Oo vewwy naughty Georgino to tell. Me never trust you with important secrets again. Fancy you tell on poor Lucia.’
‘Me so sorry,’ said Georgie, dutifully.
‘Well, since you all seem to know about it already, I suppose I had better confirm your suspicions, for you have doubtless all worked it out for yourselves. Georgie, such an obvious hint! No challenge at all! It is but a wild hypothesis—a mere suggestion—and I do hope you will not be too harsh on me as you point out the flaws in it.’
Then, using gestures with which her looking-glass was now all too familiar, she outlined her plans for the Tapestry. Tea grew cold in the cup and melted butter congealed on the tops of patient muffins for no one remembered them; before the eyes and ears of the assembly, a Great Thing was unfolding, a Kunstwerk, a wonder, if not of the world, then at the very least of the south-east coast. And how nobly, how excitingly, how brilliantly did Lucia present her project! At times her voice was low and deep, grave and statesmanlike; then she would reach up a whole octave, her clear, bright voice conveying a message of hope and enthusiasm that seemed to come from a younger, less cynical world where all things were possible. To accompany her eloquence, she emphasised each finely made point with movements of her long, delicate fingers and never once did Evie Bartlett have occasion to fear for her porcelain cake-stand. All the while, she fixed her listeners with her piercing eyes, so that each in turn felt himself to be caught in the spotlight of Destiny. When she was done, and the great peroration had at last reached its inevitable conclusion, there was not one of the company assembled in the cosy room who would not have followed her to the ends of the earth.
As suddenly as it had come, the enchantment faded and their own, sensible, down-to-earth Lucia was before them again. ‘Only an idea, the fruit of a few moments’ musing which I offer to you to see if you can make something of it. Evie, dear, might I possibly have some fresh tea? I have foolishly let mine go cold. How I do chatter on sometimes and how polite you are to bear with me!’
Evie, deeply moved, rang the bell and conversation gradually resumed, as in the interval of some mighty concert. A rubber of Bridge followed but it was unusually subdued for no one could muster the necessary acrimony and bad-feeling required for the game as it was generally played in Tilling. Although Lucia revoked quite palpably, Susan Wyse could not bring herself to chide her partner with any of her usual vigour, for it would have been most disrespectful. Diva had no appetite for nougat chocolates and pushed away the second plate untasted. Even Irene behaved in a reasonably civilised manner for she had been loftily silent during the preliminary speculation before Lucia’s arrival, adoringly silent during the speech and thoughtfully silent after it, and went home without having been rude to anybody. It was all most unusual.
It was a propitious start to an extraordinary spell of activity. The next day, work began in earnest. Lucia started by ordering from the library a complete set of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Holinshed and various other ancient sources and a number of authoritative works on mediaeval textiles and the techniques of needlecraft. As she perused this mountain of literature, she would make vague but useful notes in a large ledger or pursue cross-references, her pencil behind her ear like a clerk. While she was thus engaged in creative study and design (for she realised that her earlier work had all been far too unambitious), her agents moved through the town whipping up a near-hysterical fervour for the town’s past. Tilling had long been due for a new craze, for there had been nothing of any real substance since last year’s epidemic of cycling. Therefore the enthusiasm of its busy folk had been stifled and frustrated, as Lucia had devoted herself to public work (or such public work as she managed to make for herself) and Elizabeth had concentrated all her formidable powers on preventing her from doing so. Leaderless, Tilling had not been able to concentrate its attention on any one hobby; the Padre had tried to introduce sword-dancing but Evie had championed the cause of barbola work, while Diva had ploughed a lonely furrow as a proponent of butterfly-collecting.
Georgie, as principal artistic director, organised a sort of examination. Everyone who wished to wield a needle had to produce a piece of their own unaided work, illustrating a set theme. The subject was an ambitious one—a Mayoral procession passing through the Landgate. Diva’s effort resembled the Ashford Express passing under a tunnel. Susan Wyse, having expressly forbidden interruptions by the distractions of the world and having sent out for mellow-gold silk, produced a most lifelike rendition of a large, black whale gobbling down a tiny goldfish. Quaint Irene’s interpretation fully justified her reputation as a leading spirit of the avant-garde, while Evie’s approach was so traditional as to be virtually unrecognisable.
Nevertheless, the great project gathered momentum and Georgie gave a brief series of classes in remedial embroidery which enabled all to satisfy his exacting requirements. Hessian was procured (at a discount for taking in quantity) from the draper, who began to speak freely of affording a week in Frinton when the rush had died down, while needles and coloured wools of every conceivable hue poured into Mallards by the hour. Lucia prepared yet another set of designs which the Padre and Mr. Wyse converted into finished sketches, and their efforts were hung in a continuous line which extended from Lucia’s front-door all round the hall and half-way up the stairs. Indeed, had creativity been allowed to continue unchecked, the line might we
ll have extended right up the stairs and out on to the roof. But even the history of Tilling could not be made to extend that far.
At last the day dawned when the first stitch was to be made on the cloth itself. Brutus, legendary founder of the British race, was to be represented setting sail up the sinuous curves of the Rother. Beside him in his ship was an anonymous hero, the first chieftain of Tilling, who bore in his hands a pennant emblazoned with the borough arms, ready to leap ashore and plant it on the future site of the Town Hall. This historic moment, the first stitch, was to be Georgie’s. All Tilling Society and various local worthies were gathered in the garden-room, craning their necks to see the needle’s point sink into the hessian. Georgie, as crimson as the wool he was to wield, threaded the needle, pricked his finger, said ‘Oh, how tar’some!’, and drove the hard steel home. There was a popping of flashbulbs, like a brief electric storm, for Lucia had hired a photographer, and some applause; then tea was served.
‘Finalmente,’ sighed Lucia, when the last guest had departed, ‘the work is in progress. Nothing can stop us now.’
Georgie was looking at the first stitch. In his excitement he had put it in the wrong place and it would have to be unpicked. Nevertheless, he felt proud and happy, for this was to be his project too.
‘I think Brutus should have black hair,’ he said. ‘He was Greek, after all.’
‘Trojan, caro, or Troyan, as our ancestors would have said. He fled from Priam’s city as it burned and set sail for the Tin Islands—that’s Britain. I wonder if there can be any truth in that old tale?’
‘Well, Trojan then. But I want his robe to be golden, so his hair will have to be dark or no one will know where his head ends and his collar begins. Oh look, someone’s dropped cigarette-ash all over the cloth.’
Lucia was not listening.
‘It is my aim,’ she said, her eyes uplifted, ‘to use this Tapestry to weave together the disparate strands of our community. There! What a clever epigram! I must remember that for the Hastings Chronicle. Achievement, Georgie, our name written in a strong clear hand across the Vistor’s Book of Time. How wonderful it is to be busy again.’
While Lucia gabbled away in this vein, Georgie was busy with Brutus and his ship. As he drew the thread through the close weave of the cloth a slight feeling of unease manifested itself in the very back of his mind. He could not, however, identify it and so let it pass. He contented himself with the outline of the sail; his School (as even now he termed it) could see to the rest.
The first stitch had been thrilling, the second, third and fourth invigorating. The hundredth and even the thousandth were resolutely, if not enthusiastically, made by the needle-women of Tilling. As the work progressed, conversation came less easily to the creators of the Tapestry, for there was no longer anything to talk about. Elizabeth and her car had, so to speak, floated Brutus down the Rother, but by the time the ensign was planted there was little more to say on the matter, for the good folk of Tilling spent all their time in the garden-room, laboriously filling in Georgie’s outlines, and could not manufacture the news that Tilling Society consumed at such a rate. There was nothing to tell and hear and be the first with, for nothing except the Tapestry was happening. Still, the first episode had been completed within a week of the start, leaving but ninety-nine more to be done. At such a rate of progress, working from ten to six with all hands to the needle and strictly limited intervals for lunch and tea, they could hope to have the thing finished within two years.
The ten-o’clock train drew out of Tilling’s picturesque station, leaving behind it two passengers and a small heap of luggage. Elizabeth Mapp-Flint (for it was she) sent her husband in search of a porter and a taxi and, sitting on an upturned trunk, reviewed the situation.
Certainly it had been unfortunate that the engine of her—their—new motor had fallen clean off between Poole and Southampton and most embarrassing to be told by the mechanic who arrived to repair it that they had been fortunate to escape so lightly, considering the appalling state of the machine. Anyone with any sense, he told them, would never have bought such a pile of old junk; what had held it together for so long defied logical explanation. On the other hand, it was better that this disaster had taken place in a foreign land, so to speak, where no one of any consequence could observe it, rather than under the eyes of Lucia and quaint Irene Coles. Yet she must somehow account for her pedestrian status and her return by rail. The car could not be returned from Southampton for at least a week so great was the amount of work which would have to be done to render it innocuous, and the appalling cost of these repairs would be crippling, were it not that she would certainly recover them from the villain who had sold her the machine. Until she had been fully reimbursed, there was no question of being able to use the thing for anything but decoration. Then again, she had, by dint of furious practice, at last managed to learn the rudiments of vehicle control, and as long as her speed did not exceed fifteen miles an hour (which was quite fast enough) she could drive without risk of injury to herself or others. It would be tragic if she had no machine to drive after all her effort. More tragic still to have to sell it and be laughed to scorn.
She furrowed her brow and thought hard. Someone returning to Grebe from the direction of Hastings need not drive through the centre of town, and so it would have been perfectly possible for her to have returned from holiday without being seen, even if she were still at the wheel. If she could only get home unobserved, therefore, she could claim to have completed her holiday and sent the car to be serviced straight away, and her temporary reduction to the status of pedestrian need have no other significance. Her only problem, then, would be to get back to Grebe without being seen by the keen eyes of her fellow citizens and this might be accomplished by crouching down in the back of the taxi.
All went splendidly, for the High Street was unaccountably deserted as the Mapp-Flints, rather uncomfortable but undoubtedly invisible, were conveyed along it. Their luggage was swiftly unloaded, the taxi paid and dismissed, and Elizabeth and Major Benjy, having resolved unanimously to ameliorate the slight coolness that had existed between them over the past few days in the cause of presenting a united front to the world, set off to walk into town.
As they passed under the Landgate they became aware of a strange feeling of emptiness in the town, reinforced as they continued on their way by the fact that none of their friends was to be seen. This was most unusual for it was the height of the marketing hour, when shopping-baskets should be colliding outside Twemlow’s and the traffic backing up behind Susan’s Royce as it made its way from shop to shop. The upper window of Wasters, at which Diva always sat and watched the street, was closed and shuttered. In Church Square there proceeded from the Vicarage no hesitant piano-playing or tuneless singing of Highland ballads. In West Street no sweet mockery assailed them from Taormina, where quaint Irene was wont to lay in wait. If they were neither out nor in, where were they? All was still and silent, and only tradesmen and other persons of no consequence jostled each other in the empty streets.
‘Can’t understand it,’ muttered Major Benjy darkly. He had anticipated being, if not the centre, then at least near the centre of that knot of eager enquirers who always assembled round a returning traveller.
‘They’ll all be at Mallards, you mark my words,’ snarled his wife. ‘I knew Lucia was up to something, and the moment my back was turned ....’
As they rounded the corner by the crooked chimney from Church Square, they saw through the window of the garden-room a sight so pitiful that it would have touched the heart of Lord Shaftesbury had he been alive. Seated in a semi-circle, with the despondent air of Nibelungs forging gold for their tyrannical master, sat Evie and Diva and Susan Wyse, while Georgie, spectacles on nose, directed their labour with, if anything, a greater air of misery. Their faces were unusually pale, like those of coal-miners who see little of the sun, and no word seemed to pass between them. Only Irene seemed to be enjoying herself, and since it was gen
erally accepted that Irene rejoiced when others would grieve and grieved when others would be inclined to rejoice, her mirth was not inconsistent. At the back of the room, Elizabeth could faintly discern Lucia, directing the Padre and Mr. Wyse in their attention to an enormous length of cloth.
Within, the air of gloom was real enough. The second panel of the Tapestry was a battle-scene of great complexity, illustrating a rather obscure tale from the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth. It had gone wrong at the first attempt, although not before several days had been expended upon it, days of forced, grudging toil under the relentless glare of the electric light. The unacceptable version had been unpicked and a second version begun, with various alterations and additions inserted by the Mayor. Had the author of the ‘Song of the Shirt’ sought an illustration for that graphic work, there could have been no better than this vignette of misery and despair.
Lucia, who had felt a trifle uneasy for the last two days, suspended her work on the design for the fifty-third panel (she could not be bothered to wait for the others) and came over to inspect the progress.
‘Charming!’ she cooed. ‘Exquisite! Such neatness, Susan dear, although you might place the stitches even closer together. Look, teeny little cracks of cloth are showing between them. Could I be terribly cruel and get you to do that bit again?’
‘But it’s taken me all day to do that much!’ groaned the wretched woman.
‘A stitch in time saves nine, dear,’ countered Lucia, and passed on. ‘Excellent, Diva, but perhaps you might consider adhering a little more closely to Mr. Georgie’s outline. Bravo, Evie! Slow but sure!’
In desperation she turned to Georgie, who had stopped working altogether. He was massaging his wrist and would say nothing but ‘I’ve pricked my finger and it hurts!’ and ‘Won’t somebody open a window—it’s so terribly stuffy in here.’ So Lucia left him in peace and came thankfully to Irene, whose needle rose and fell with pleasing regularity.
