Lucia Triumphant

by Tom Holt

  Georgie’s next throw landed him on the Water Works, and he felt obliged to buy them, for they were a public amenity and ought to be run for the good of the community. That was what Lucia would say, were she present. Mr. Wyse threw three and one which brought him to Chance. He selected a card, read it and put it down, stony-faced, on the table. Then he paid some money to the Bank. When he was not looking Georgie turned it up to see what it was. ‘Drunk in Charge,’ it read, ‘Fine £20.’ The fortunes of the Wyses did not prosper thereafter. Susan was compelled to pay super-tax, which she did with a proud flourish, and Mr. Wyse was sent to jail. Elizabeth soon gained control of all the yellow and green properties, and began buying hotels with reckless abandon, whereupon Irene called her a slum landlord and threatened her with dire punishments come the Revolution. Diva, after a great deal of tortured indecision, added the Old Kent Road to Whitechapel and built a house on each, only to be assessed for street repairs and deprived of £80. The Wyses eventually got out of jail and were promptly sent back again. The Padre, with canny Scottish good sense, gained control of all the red properties but no one landed on them, while Evie, drawing on the Community Chest, won second prize in a beauty competition.

  The game was won, as usual, by Elizabeth. She seized control of London as quickly and as absolutely as she had captured Tilling, and the parallel did not go unmarked, especially at Mallards.

  ‘I expect she’ll buy Porpoise Street and West Street and Church Square,’ remarked Lucia bitterly, ‘and smother them in little green houses and little red hotels. Then we shall all have to throw a die in the mornings before we leave our homes. A four will permit us to go to Twemlow’s; a five will entitle us to visit Mr. Worthington’s and buy some meat. But should we only be vouchsafed a two, we must perforce go to Mr. Hopkins and eat fish for our supper, whether we like it or not. Should we be so fortunate as to throw a six we will be permitted to trudge out to Grebe to partake of Monopoly and potted-meat sandwiches. A throw of one—’

  Georgie interrupted this fantastical monologue. ‘But Lucia,’ he said imploringly, ‘you should join in too. It’s such fun, you know, so much better than tedious old Bridge, and there’s no gambling, which should appeal to your principles. I remember there was a time when you declared that gambling was at the root of half the social problems in England. And it’s not just a game, it’s training for commerce. It sharpens your mind. If ever I went in for property developing’ (now there was a thought to conjure with!) ‘I should have a very good idea of how to go about it. Buying places cheap, improving them, and then letting them at a profit. Why, it’s good business practice.’

  Lucia turned her head away and her eye fell on the piano. They had not played their duets together for three weeks now, what with the Tapestry and then Monopoly. She was silent for a moment and Georgie could see that a Tilling thought had struck her. When she turned back she was smiling her bright, innocent smile that generally marked the emergence of some devious strategy.

  ‘Alas!’ she exclaimed. ‘My poor pianoforte. How I have neglected you—cattiva Lucia. No wonder my soul seems so arid and dry without sweet Mozartino to water it.’

  Music hath charms, Georgie recalled, and he suggested that they dispel the dark clouds of discord with a little duet. But Lucia seemed strangely evasive.

  ‘No, Georgie, not just now. I am so much out of practice. An hour tomorrow at my scales will be scarcely time enough to ease these negligent fingers.’

  ‘But I’m just as much out of practice as you are,’ Georgie protested, anxious to pin down the reason for the reluctance. ‘We can get back into shape together.’

  ‘How sweet of you, Georgie, to offer to keep me company. But I should be so ashamed to make horrible noises in your presence. You would find out what an indifferent musician I really am.’

  ‘Oh, very well then,’ he said obediently, for he was anxious to preserve this apparent reconciliation between them. He had cause to be penitent, for he had betrayed his wife and (what was surely worse) his Mayor by joining the Monopolists, and had been surprised by the overall lack of hostile reaction.

  ‘Now Georgino,’ crooned Lucia in her arcane dialect of baby-talk spiked with Italian, and Georgie prepared to be made to do something. ‘Lucia have ickle task for clever hubby Georgie. Me so, so tired of seeing dwefful Tapestry lying about so sad and unwanted in giardino-room. So untidy it is, to be sure. So will’oo be kindest Georgino and make Tapestry into nice pair of curtains for Lucia to hang in the fenestri?’

  ‘Why, of course I will!’ cried Georgie, relieved and delighted. ‘So sensible of you not to waste all that material. They’ll do splendidly for the scullery.’

  ‘No, caro, not the scullery,’ continued Lucia sweetly, ‘the garden-room. Those old damask curtains are so frayed at the edge that I can’t bear the sight of them any longer.’

  Georgie gasped. To flaunt the ruins of her great project, like a flag of surrender, in the windows of her erstwhile seat of power was a most remarkable act. And yet—it would be a subtle reproach to the weak flesh of Tilling, to pass by that reminder of dereliction of duty every day, and so reflect on what might have been.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said. ‘Just the very thing. They could have been made for the purpose.’

  That was not entirely tactful, but Lucia’s demeanour did not change. ‘Splendid!’ she said. ‘So kind of you. It shouldn’t take long with Grosvenor and Foljambe to help you. And now be a dear and tell me all about Elizabeth’s Monopoly this afternoon. So sorry to have been such a shrill, shrewish Lucia when you were about to tell me before.’

  Curiouser and curiouser. Dimly Georgie could perceive a purpose behind this mercurial change, afar off and shrouded in mist, but his rational mind could not make out its shape, and so attributed the peripeteia to simple friendliness.

  ‘Elizabeth won,’ he said briefly. ‘I didn’t get much, only the Water Works and Vine Street.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ cooed his wife. ‘And how exactly did Elizabeth win? It sounds like a terribly complicated game, and I’ve only the vaguest idea of how you play it.’

  So Georgie told her all about it. He made several mistakes but Lucia did not correct him, for to do so would betray the fact that she had that morning received from a leading London toy-shop a Monopoly set and a book on tactics by the current South-Eastern Area champion, study of which had helped while away her solitary afternoon. In fact, so engrossed had she been in rehearsing the ploys and gambits suggested in the book that when Georgie had returned from the battlefield she had been compelled to find extempore hiding places for book and Monopoly set. The latter was under the cushion of the sofa, the former under the lid of the piano ....

  ‘A strangely fascinating game,’ she opined when his confused and rather inaccurate summary was concluded, ‘and one with distinct possibilities for self-improvement, as you so rightly pointed out. As in Bridge the bidding helps one to learn how to communicate indirectly with one’s partner, to understand without words, to tune in, so to speak, to a fellow-human’s thought and feelings, so in Monopoly one learns how to plan ahead, to create a strategy far-reaching enough to ensure victory, yet flexible enough to adapt to the vicissitudes of fortune.’

  ‘You could put it like that,’ said Georgie cautiously.

  ‘Thank you, dear. How foolish I have been,’ she continued, ‘how arrogant, to stand aloof so, simply because my tiresome little pet project has come to naught. How annoying it must have been for you all to be cooped up in this little room, with me being such a severe task-mistress. I see now that I took far too much for granted. I only hope I have not irretrievably alienated all my dear, dear friends. So I must try and undo some of the damage if I can. Would you be terribly sweet and ask Elizabeth for me if I could join in? I hope I have been punished enough for my wickedness by missing so much delightful entertainment.’

  Georgie was dumbstruck. Had his eloquent description of the game of Monopoly so impressed his wife that she was prepared, like an Apost
le, to cast away everything and follow it only? Unlikely, for he was aware that as a storyteller and narrator he lacked a certain amount of skill. Then what was behind this second, even more mercurial change? Whatever it was, it marked Lucia’s return to the lists, and so it would be prudent as well as loyal to be unmistakably on her side from now on. He had no wish to share the terrible fate that must soon be inflicted on the disloyal.

  In the High Street, sheltered from the rain by Twistevant’s ample awning, Tilling debated Lucia’s extraordinary declaration of penitence with all the gravity of an Aeschylean chorus discussing the ways of Zeus.

  ‘She knows when she’s beaten,’ said Evie hesitantly.

  ‘She never has before,’ replied Georgie. ‘That’s why she’s never been beaten. I really don’t know what to make of it.’

  ‘ ’Tes a far, far better thing she does now than she has ever done before,’ intoned the Padre. ‘Blessed are the meek, and the peacemakers.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Evie. ‘But it’s too fascinating. She was nice to Elizabeth when Elizabeth bought her motor-car, and Elizabeth was nice to her when she was doing the Tapestry. Now Lucia’s being nice to Elizabeth over Monopoly and being apologetic about cooping us all up in the garden-room. It looks as though they’ve both turned over a new leaf.’ There was a hint, more than a hint, of disappointment in Evie’s voice as she said this.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ said Diva, who had heard all this as she bought her vegetables. ‘Can’t account for it. Must ask Elizabeth what she makes of it all. Though I don’t suppose she’ll tell me.’

  ‘You make it sound as if Lucia and Elizabeth were deadly enemies,’ said Georgie. ‘I think they really like each other, deep down. It’s just that little things come between them occasionally and they quarrel.’

  The Padre muttered something under his breath about the Ninth Commandment, but Georgie chose to ignore him.

  ‘Why else,’ Georgie continued, ‘should Lucia want me to turn the Tapestry into a pair of curtains for the garden-room? It means she’s finished with it once and for all. She said that she’d made a mistake and taken us all too much for granted, and she’s terribly sorry for being such a nuisance.’

  Outside the shelter of the awnings the elements raged to mark this shattering tale. Armed men clashed in the skies and lions were seen in the streets on the night before Caesar’s murder; a heavy shower was the least that Nature could do to counterpoint such an announcement.

  ‘No!’ said Evie. ‘How brave of her.’

  ‘She’s up to something,’ muttered Diva. ‘Look forward to seeing what it turns out to be.’

  Elizabeth herself, feet galoshed and basket covered from the rain, now joined the little assembly. It was not a Monopoly day today, but yesterday’s excitements would no doubt be supplying the topic of this conversation.

  ‘Good morning, Evie, Diva, Mr. Georgie—is that a new tie?—how-de-do, Padre. May I scriggle through? Nice warming vegetable soup for my Benjy and me today, I think.’

  There was a silence and a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere such as one experiences when one is about to be told some bad news. Diva nudged Georgie and he spoke.

  ‘Good morning, Elizabeth. Such a good idea, and very tasty too. I’ve got a message for you from Lucia.’

  ‘And where is our dear friend today?’ said Elizabeth gaily. ‘So unlike her to stuff indoors in the morning. Not unwell, I hope?’

  ‘Oh no, quite well. But she insists that she has the house to herself this morning so that I won’t hear her practising the pianoforte. She says she’s much too much out of practice, and she’ll have to get the man from the piano shop in Hastings to come over and tune her.’

  There was another silence, and Elizabeth cast a surreptitious eye over the sheepish faces of her friends. Georgie took a deep breath and continued.

  ‘And she wants me to ask you if you could come to tea and play Monopoly at Mallards one day. She—she apologises’—the word seemed as big as a turnip and Georgie could hardly force it through his lips—‘for being so stand-offish and turning down all the invitations you so kindly sent her before, when you started Monopoly, but she says she was all wrapped up in her Tapestry.’

  This astounding image quite rounded off the surreal speech, and Elizabeth almost felt sorry that quaint Irene was not present. What a picture that would have made!

  ‘But what could there possibly be to apologise for? It is we who should apologise’—Elizabeth evidently liked repeating the word—‘to dear Lucia for deserting our posts. Do please tell her that I will be only too delighted to bring my little divertissement to tea tomorrow. And how fares the dear Tapestry? We must get back to work soon, before Her Worship despairs of us altogether.’

  ‘I’m turning it into a pair of curtains,’ Georgie muttered. ‘It’s her idea. She said she was sorry for boring us all with it, and how kind it was of everyone to bear with her so long.’

  Had Elizabeth not managed to steady herself in time she would have fallen clean through Twistevant’s broad plate-glass window. As it was, she was bereft of speech and staggered without a word into the shop. The scene dissolved, and Georgie was left alone. It was all too much for him, and he must find out the truth or burst. Yet Lucia’s attitude made direct questioning impossible. He had, by his own delinquency, been put in the position of being a hostile power in Mallards; inviolate and treated with almost exaggerated respect and consideration, but wholly excluded from the deliberations of the house. Even Grosvenor had taken to giving him suspicious glances as she served the soup, as if accusing him of planning to steal the spoons. And he had an idea that Foljambe didn’t approve at all ....

  ‘I shall ask her to her face,’ he declared to the dripping canvas, and set off resolutely for home. For once his straight question received a straight answer.

  ‘Oh, I see!’ he said. ‘How very clever.’

  ‘How delightful this is,’ warbled Lucia, teapot in hand. ‘What a lucky woman I am to have such forgiving friends.’

  Behind her was an expanse of backed hessian, like a backdrop. She had taken her place in front of those fatal curtains, and the significance of it was wasted on no one. Lucia had turned her back on the Tapestry.

  ‘Lucia dear, I fear I must be quite stern with you.’ Elizabeth apparently triumphant but inwardly somewhat nervous, although she could not for the life of her think why, smiled her best smile. ‘You seem to imagine that you have offended us. It is we who have offended you. So no more apologies, you dear hypocrite. You heap coals of fire on our poor heads.’

  The Padre smiled and took another sponge-finger. ‘I declare that ’tes all in the past the noo,’ he said warmly, ‘whatever ’twas that divided us so before. Now we are all come together in the ane place, the Lord be thanked. We have beaten our swords into plough-shares, made each our own sacrifice and swallowed our pride. Now let us all partake of the guid cheer.’

  This pretty speech, epitome of reconciliation, came from the heart, for the Padre had not himself been wholly untouched by suffering. The Canterbury Tales alone had yielded up a veritable treasury of picturesque phraseology, all of which he was prepared to forego in the interests of peace.

  ‘Beautifully put, dear Padre,’ said Lucia. ‘And now let us begin. I can’t wait for my first game.’

  Elizabeth reached for the Monopoly set, but before she could draw it from her shopping-basket Lucia had produced, apparently from nowhere, an identical red-and-white box, and was lifting the lid clear with a practised hand.

  ‘Where did you get that from?’ demanded Elizabeth hoarsely.

  ‘I had to send away to London for it,’ replied Lucia. ‘I tried to buy one at the stationer’s, but, do you know, he was sold out. Apparently someone had gone in and bought four sets all at once. I wonder who on earth that could have been?’

  ‘Mapp!’ cried Irene joyfully. ‘It must have been Mapp.’

  ‘Don’t be so foolish, Irene dear,’ Lucia rebuked her. ‘Now why on earth should Elizabeth want to ha
ve all the Monopoly sets in Tilling?’

  Elizabeth flushed red and did not reply. There would be no point in answering the unspoken charge; to deny it would be fatuous, to accept it suicidal. Inside her, spreading like a cold, clammy fog, was the realisation of what Lucia’s counter-stratagem was to be. She felt the urge to escape, but she could not. They had tied her to the stake, she could not fly.

  As perfidious Stanley sided with the usurper at Bosworth Field, so Georgie took his place at Lucia’s side, and to them, aptly enough, fell the token of the battleship. Irene was elected Banker (a rôle she heartily detested on moral grounds) and the Mapp-Flints, husband and trembling wife, were assigned the first move. In order to restrict the damage that the Major was capable of doing, Elizabeth had decided that they would act as a team, rather than making alternate moves, for this game was not being played for light or ludicrous prizes but for the social throne of Tilling. Grimly coy, she thrust one die into his hand and took the other herself. ‘Un, deux, trois, jettons-nous!’ she shrilled, and threw her die. Her husband did likewise but not quite simultaneously.

  ‘You’re not buying, dear?’ cooed Lucia. ‘And so early? Such a daring tactic. I see I shall have to be ever so careful. Let me see. The space now goes to auction, does it not? Georgie, advise me. Should I bid? You think so? You’re sure? Very well then.’

  So shaken was Elizabeth by this praise of her daring that she joined in the auction, and finally managed to secure for £260 what she could have had for £200. Better safe, however, than sorry ....

  In almost no time at all Lucia had secured all the yellow properties, and at once set about building houses. Her funds were almost exhausted, but behind her cries of childish delight Elizabeth could detect some awful strategy. In vain she struggled to divert it.