Lucia Triumphant

by Tom Holt

  ‘What ho, Lucia!’ exclaimed the quaint one. ‘Isn’t this grand? It’s so wonderfully like Russia, isn’t it, in one of the People’s factories. Everyone working together for the Cause. This is Socialism in action. I’ve a good mind to write to the Webbs about it!’

  Evie said something which Lucia did not quite catch.

  ‘Dear Irene, what an example to us all!’ She caught sight of the figure that the Example was working on and uttered a strangled cry.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked the quaint one in surprise.

  ‘Why isn’t King Tyl wearing any clothes?’ demanded Lucia. ‘He should have a purple robe.’

  Irene guffawed. ‘But, Lucia, he was the Defender of the People, or so you said. Obviously a Socialist, an Ur-Trotsky. So I’ve stripped him of his badges of rank and made him as other men are, pre-eminent in his qualities alone. That’s why he is a bit taller than the others.’

  ‘But Trotsky wears clothes, surely?’

  ‘Not all the time,’ replied Irene merrily, and returned to her task with renewed effort.

  Georgie demanded of his wrist why he bothered if people were going to change things without asking him first, but Lucia ignored him and retreated to the back of the room. The Padre was consulting his watch.

  ‘Alas, Worshipful Leddy,’ he said, ‘I mun perform a sairvice o’baptism at noon, so I mun be awa’ to ma hoose.’

  ‘But it’s only quarter to eleven.’

  ‘Ah weel, there’s the holy water to prepare and my vestments to see to, and a’ the bonny green chalk to lave fra my hands.’

  It was true that the chalk with which he had been marking out the cloth had considerably marked him. But an hour and a quarter seemed a long time for a wash.

  ‘Of course,’ she sighed, ‘but please be quick.’

  ‘The Lord’s work canna be hurried, Mistress Pillson,’ said the Padre emphatically. ‘I dinna think you would see a newborn babe’s soul put in jeopardy for want of a few minutes.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but we must get on. We won’t be stopping for lunch until half-past one, and we’ll have to resume at quarter to two. I have instructed cook to prepare chicken broth and sandwiches.’

  The Padre fled with a groan and was intercepted by Elizabeth as he turned the corner. She had sent Major Benjy home, but could not bear to return herself until some explanation had been elicited. Therefore she had spent ten minutes on an obdurate shoelace in the hope that someone might come out. It was some time before the Padre was sufficiently coherent to be understood, and when his powers of speech were returned to him he spoke pure Birmingham; the Highland dialect did not contain words capable of expressing the emotions he felt. At first his narrative was all of chicken broth and only fifteen minutes for lunch, but a sharp word from Elizabeth brought him back to the point, and he unfolded the whole history of the Tapestry.

  ‘Poor, dear Padre,’ she cooed, and her heart sang in her bosom like a nightingale. ‘After you have concluded your christening, you must come over to Grebe and have a proper lunch with us. You can tell Lucia that the godparents were late! I can’t wait to hear the full story.’

  And so she did. After a long and leisurely lunch had been eaten and properly digested, and coffee lingered over to an extent unusual even in Tilling, the Padre went sorrowing away for what he termed the afternoon shift, while Elizabeth sat and devised in her mind the overthrow of the Tapestry.

  She could declare a war of mockery and derision on the project and be sure that the oppressed workers would rise up and defect at her call. Yet to do so would be an overt act of hostility, and Lucia (so vindictive!) would blame her for the collapse of her precious hobby. A harder but better course of action would be to subvert it from within, smiling and smiling and being a villain, so to speak. And it so happened that she had within her luggage a secret weapon of unbounded potential, brought back from Southampton for just such a purpose. But now this mine could be exploded within the enemy’s citadel, rather than simply laid under her walls.

  She rose and went to the telephone. A number was demanded; she was put through. Foljambe’s voice answered at the other end.

  ‘Mrs. Mapp-Flint wishes to speak to Mrs. Pillson,’ she said, and soon Lucia’s voice, shrill and sharp as ever, came through the receiver.

  ‘Lucia, darling, it’s your Elizabeth here. Yes, dear, a simply lovely time, I must tell you all about it when we meet. But, first, I have just heard from the Padre about your marvellous Tapestry; such vision, dear Worship, so full of praise for your clever idea. Lucia, you naughty one, how could you bring yourself to be so unkind to your old friend as to let her go away on holiday and start work without her? Hello?’ She’s dropped the receiver again, thought Elizabeth. ‘Do be sweet and reassure me that there’s still something left for me to do—that’s if you think that I’ll be up to it, of course!’

  Lucia reassured her that there was plenty for her to do; only too delighted.

  ‘Splendid! Shall I bring my own needles? No? How thoughtful. And thread? That too! Such organisation. But, of course, I forgot, I am speaking to the Mayor of Tilling, after all. Very well, then, I shall run all the way to Mallards.’

  Curiously enough, Lucia entirely failed to catch the significance of Elizabeth’s promise to run all the way (surely unnecessary for a motorist), for her mind, like Macbeth’s was full of scorpions. She knew only too well that her own declaration of peace had been Machiavellian policy. What else could Elizabeth’s gratuitous and unprovoked gesture of friendship be but another such? And, if so, what diabolical scheme had that dark intellect devised?

  Chapter 4

  Lucia sat alone in the darkness and gazed at the tangle of wool and needles that represented the shipwreck of her project. Four days had elapsed since that woman had come Assyrian-like out of the West, bearing in her hand that terrible, ruinous cardboard box.

  At this time the room should be full of industry and effort, the electric light gleaming on the points of a hedge of needles. Instead she sat alone like desolate Sappho and could not bring herself to touch the fallen temple, her Tapestry. Even Georgie—perfidious, heartless Georgie—had deserted her for the seductive gaiety of Grebe, the meretricious glamour of the brightly coloured board, the tantalising fall of the dice. Et tu, Georgino? Then fall Lucia.

  Elizabeth had not made good her promise to run all the way to Mallards but she must have walked ever so swiftly, for she had arrived shortly before the company was due to break off for tea. Under her arm had been a brown-paper parcel, long and flat and rectangular like a painting. She had left it on the hall-table—‘Just a little memento of our holiday’—and had been shown the work in progress, Brutus and the battle of the cannibals against King Tyl, which she had seemed to admire greatly. There had not been time to start her at her work before tea, so the trays had been brought in and the table cleared. Elizabeth had spoken briefly, modestly of her holiday, and the subject had almost been successfully closed. Then Elizabeth had, as an apparent afterthought, remembered her parcel—‘Just let me show you the silly little toy we brought back with us from Southampton.’ The parcel had been opened and a red and white cardboard box, with the incongruous word ‘Monopoly’ written on the lid, had been revealed. It was a game, Elizabeth said, with dice and counters, rather childish as all such things were but strangely gripping once you got into it. Should she just open the box? Would it be a terrible bore to everyone if she just briefly explained the rules? Well then, just a quick demonstration, a few throws of the dice, but they must be sure to start work again at five or she would feel terribly guilty. She had come to work, not to play.

  Not a stitch more had been added that day, and Lucia had been hard put to it to evict the eager players by half-past seven. The game, it seemed, could go on for an awfully long time, and the longer it went on the more exciting it became. They could not bear to leave it half finished with Fenchurch Street Station as yet unclaimed and the Padre still languishing in jail. Just a few throws more, and the game must resolve itself.
Elizabeth did appear to be in a commanding position, but things could change so quickly ....

  Work on the Tapestry had resumed the next morning, but at such a pitifully slow rate that hardly anything worthwhile had been done, and there had been no end of careless and botched stitches to be unpicked and done again. The only pleasure seemed to be in discussing Monopoly, with the result that Lucia, who had not participated in the game, was left alone and unregarded. Even Irene had dawdled over her needle, and her usual creative drive had deserted her for she did exactly what she was told. Only Elizabeth had displayed any enthusiasm for the Tapestry. She had laboured tirelessly, drawing the wool through with neat, careful fingers, never looking up and appearing wholly reluctant to discuss the wonder she had brought to Tilling. Indeed it was Elizabeth almost unaided who finished off the second scene, so that for a moment Lucia believed that the Mayoress had come to help, not to destroy. But this illusion was swiftly shattered.

  ‘There now,’ she had cried, ‘that’s that finished. I do think we might stop for a moment, Lucia, and have a little rest. We shall work all the better for it afterwards.’

  The break had lasted until lunch-time, and the soup and sandwiches were quickly eaten. But before Lucia could order resumption of the task Elizabeth had produced apparently from thin air (Lucia could have sworn she did not have it with her when she arrived) the accursed Monopoly set, and play had begun at once. The rattle of the dice and the excited cries of the players had driven her from the room; when she returned she found Georgie sitting at Elizabeth’s side, watching with rapt attention and expressing heartfelt admiration for her tactical skill and foresight. That he should have succumbed to temptation surprised her not at all, for she knew her Georgie. But the speed of his capitulation disappointed and wounded her.

  The game had continued all afternoon and almost until evening, when finally Elizabeth, with pretty words of commiseration to her victims, rose the winner and swept the pieces back into the box. But there was no sulking or bad feeling, such as might follow a game of Bridge, only a general feeling of catharsis; the battle had been hard but fair, and the best player had won. As if to compensate her opponents for their defeat, Elizabeth broadcast invitations to dinner at Grebe. It was only with difficulty that Lucia herself avoided accepting, for Georgie was most keen to go. There would be Monopoly before and after the meal and tactical talk during it, for Elizabeth had declared that she would open the treasury of her experience of the game to all the novices, and Georgie was convinced that he would be at a great disadvantage were he not to be present. As a result he had been sullen and uncommunicative at dinner and had not seemed to hear any word she spoke about the Tapestry, even though she was careful to praise his quite shoddy work during the day. No one had turned up next morning to resume the project, and at half-past ten she heard Georgie gabbling away in a loud whisper on the telephone. Shortly afterwards he muttered something about seeing where everyone had got to, seized his cavalry cape and an old hat and bolted out of the front-door like a startled rabbit.

  Having cast her net Elizabeth resolved to keep her fish firmly within it. Monopoly would be carefully rationed, and play would take place only in the afternoons on alternate days. She knew the craze could not last for ever; Tilling crazes seldom saw out the month and frequently died away within the fortnight. But she was determined to wring the last possible drop out of this one, and still be the first to drop it when it showed signs of becoming tedious. With this in her mind she had gone to the stationer’s and bought up the entire stock of sets—four—to ensure that no one else could get possession of one and start up a rival school. Monopoly, she felt, must mean just that.

  It had been fortunate, to say the least, that Elizabeth’s finances had compelled her to select that particular hotel in Southampton while waiting to hear the worst from the garage. As an hotel it had left a lot to be desired, and her feelings on seeing their room had not been at all joyful or optimistic. There had been dust everywhere, and the thought that this might be a useful topic to pursue in the forthcoming negotiations over the bill prompted her to take a chair and examine the top of the wardrobe. There she found a red and white box, evidently left behind by some previous occupant of the room; a family, perhaps, whiling away the hours before they caught their ship. She opened it idly and almost at once realised the potential of the game. Since there was nothing else to do she sat down on the bed and laid out the board, cards and imitation money and began to study the rather complicated instructions. Major Benjy, who had been sleeping rather noisily in the chair, soon awoke. At first he pretended not to notice what she was doing, for words had passed between them at the side of the road, in the garage and in the taxi, whereas the exact opposite had been the case ever since. But the pastime looked so intriguing that his display of indifference had proved impossible to maintain. Without actually speaking, therefore, he had joined his wife and started to peruse the instructions for himself. Rather as two cats who have not been introduced will, after preliminary and hostile display, warily come to share the same hearthrug, they began to play Monopoly. So enthralling did the game turn out to be that they spoke to each other several times before they remembered their deadly enmity. They had dined that evening in silence and bad humour, but afterwards the contest had been resumed. In fact it had continued late into the night, only to be adjourned when sleep was irresistible. After a hurried (and silent) breakfast, they had set up the board again, and Elizabeth, despite being not a whit less furious with her husband than she had been beside the road, helped him set out the pieces as they had been at close of play last evening. She even found words to correct his rather faulty memory on the subject of who had finished up with Bond Street. This unspoken armistice had been dissolved by the news from the garage and the ensuing debate as to precisely who was to blame. The soldiers, so to speak, had broken off their game of football in No Man’s Land and returned to their respective trenches. Nevertheless, Elizabeth reflected long and hard about the almost uncanny ability of the game to dismiss virtually everything else from the players’ minds, and no doubt it was while her mind was so distracted that she inadvertently packed the Monopoly set in her suitcase, under a heavy cardigan.

  It was the Wyses’ turn to host the day’s sitting of the Monopolists. The privilege was jealously sought after, for the host naturally had first choice of counters. Mr. Wyse had a particular fondness for the top hat, while the motor-car, appropriately enough, generally seemed to fall to Elizabeth. Georgie, as Tilling’s best-dressed man, was accorded the flat-iron, Diva claimed the thimble and the Bartletts and Irene would be left to decide who got the battleship and who would be left with the boot. Since there were always fewer counters than would-be players, it had been agreed that married couples, being one in the sight of God, should also be regarded as one player for the purposes of the game. The Wyses made their decisions jointly, with the result that play was often held up for some minutes; but the Bartletts and the Mapp-Flints tended to take alternate throws. This happy device enabled the most attractive feature of Bridge, failing to understand what your partner was up to and falling out as a result, to be introduced into the game. If the required element of dissent was not forthcoming from this particular convention there were always the rules, in their splendid complexity, to fall out over.

  With the set under her arm, therefore, Elizabeth rang the bell of Starling Cottage with a light heart. The door was answered by Figgis, the Wyses’ grim-faced butler, and Elizabeth was ushered into the presence of her hosts. The company had long since assembled, and a buzz of tactical discussion died down; Elizabeth felt rather like a senior officer entering a briefing session, and had to restrain herself from saying ‘Carry on, gentlemen.’ Major Benjy would probably have done so, but she had sent him like a schoolboy unwillingly to golf, for despite his enthusiasm for the game he was at times a hindrance to her. He could never resist buying the railway stations, at whatever cost. The Great War, he would claim, was won through control of the railways; ra
ilways had hamstrung the Boers and India had been largely pacified by their construction.

  The board was set out; Georgie threw highest and was thereby entitled to the first move.

  ‘Oh look!’ he exclamined. ‘I’ve thrown a double five. That’s lucky.’ He advanced the flat-iron ten places, while Mr. Wyse, as banker, counted out his initial £200. He put down his counter and his face fell. ‘In jail—oh, just visiting, that’s all right. Do I throw again now? Nine. Vine Street.’

  ‘A cousin of mine lived in Vine Street once,’ said Diva.

  ‘No!’ said Georgie. ‘What a coincidence! I’d better buy it in that case. It must be a very select area.’

  Diva did not mention that her cousin had kept an umbrella shop, and Georgie disbursed £200 into the exchequer.

  Susan Wyse was next to throw; she recorded three and landed on Whitechapel Road. ‘Where,’ she enquired, ‘is Whitechapel Road?’ Irene told her, and she decided not to buy it. As a result it went to auction and eventually was knocked down to Diva for £120. It was well known that Diva could not resist an auction with its possibilities for getting bargains, and Elizabeth exploited this weakness to the full. Elizabeth’s own throw landed her on Chance, and she drew a speeding fine of £15. She regarded this as rather unjust, for she never exceeded the speed limits ....

  Diva threw a double six and promptly bought the Electric Company. ‘I can’t see how that could fail to be profitable,’ she said. ‘I had my last quarter’s bill last week. Scandalous.’ She threw again and landed on Chance. Fate, merciless and arbitrary, sent her back three spaces to Vine Street. She claimed that she was only visiting her cousin, but the rules were inflexible on that point and she was separated from rent. Irene landed on Income Tax and handed over £200. She did not complain, however, for she was a good Socialist and said that she only wished there were more taxes to pay; best of all, she suggested, why not nationalise all Elizabeth’s properties and build workers’ co-operatives on them? The Bartletts landed on King’s Cross Station, which suited them admirably.