‘Dear Mr Coward,’ said Lucia warmly, ‘how wonderful of you to take such an interest in our little dramas. Now, here is Foljambe with our martinis. Goodness, what a lot.’
‘You come most carefully upon your hour,’ Gielgud said in what was really a very splendid manner, fully worthy of a spontaneous round of applause. However, none manifested itself so he simply reached out one of his hands for a glass.
‘Wonderful child,’ Coward whispered to a blushing middle-aged Foljambe as he reached out both of his.
Chapter 19
Whether it was due to the number of martinis already imbibed or not, Noël (as he insisted on Lucia calling him) was in sparkling form as the company sat down to dinner.
‘Goodness, we’re thirteen at table,’ said Georgie suddenly. ‘I hadn’t realised. Would you like Grosvenor to lay an extra place, Lucia?’
Lucia had not realised either. The normal Tilling crowd of she and Georgie, the Wyses, the Mapp-Flints, the Bartletts plus Irene and Diva always made ten, so with Olga, Gielgud and Coward they were indeed thirteen.
She waved her hand nonchalantly and said, ‘Pish, pish, Georgie,’ as she signalled to Grosvenor and Foljambe to serve the soup.
‘Awfully brave, Lucia,’ said Susan nervously, known to be deeply superstitious. However, since she had also been known to commune with the spirits of dead budgerigars, Lucia felt that her qualms could safely be ignored.
Gielgud tasted the soup and graciously pronounced it excellent in the manner of a Plantagenet king bestowing some country estates on a loyal follower.
‘How wonderful, Mr Coward, that you were able to come to the fête,’ Irene said brightly, while staring grimly at Mapp. ‘There was a lot of talk that you might not be able to make it.’
Uncomfortably aware that everyone around the table was staring at her, Mapp looked surprised, and asked, ‘Was there?’
‘Yes, there jolly well was,’ Irene insisted. ‘In fact, certain people doubted that you had even been invited.’
Not for the first time, Lucia reflected how very convenient it could be that Irene entirely lacked any social graces.
‘Really?’ Olga ejaculated in disbelief. ‘How very odd.’
‘Indeed,’ Lucia murmured.
There was a pause during which Elizabeth Mapp-Flint said nothing at all but concentrated on her soup. Then Coward, registering a meaningful glance from Olga, remembered his brief.
‘I am surprised to hear that,’ he said, ‘but then perhaps it just goes to show how ill-informed gossip can be. The invitation was issued by Mrs Pillson – Lucia, I should say, if she will permit me – a few weeks ago, at the urging of the committee, I understand.’
Irene gazed triumphantly at Mapp, while Lucia looked serene.
‘Sadly I was unable to accept it as my diary was very crowded for this weekend,’ he went on, ‘but when my availability changed I was of course eager to come and visit Tilling, as I had repeatedly assured Lucia I was anxious to do. I rang, she invited me, and here we are.’
Mr Wyse, who was acutely aware of the background to these exchanges, and the undercurrent to the proceedings, was nonetheless eager to spare anyone any further unpleasantness.
‘A real coup, dear Mrs Pillson, to have landed three such famous guests at one dinner table. Tilling has never known anything like it. A celebrated opera singer,’ a bow to Olga, ‘and,’ two further bows, ‘two greatly admired actors.’
‘All hoped you would open the fête, you see,’ Diva interjected slightly breathlessly. ‘So disappointed when we heard you couldn’t.’
‘But a big hooray for Georgie, who gallantly stepped into the breach,’ Lucia said. ‘I was asked, of course, though I would have made a poor substitute for dear Noël, but I found I just couldn’t manage it.’
There was a curious gurgling, choking noise from the Mapp-Flint sector of the table.
‘So may I ask,’ Susan Wyse broke in, ‘who would have been opening it had Mr Pillson not agreed to do the honours?’
‘Somebody I’d never heard of,’ Georgie advised her. ‘I’m told he sometimes reads the shipping forecast on the Home Service.’
‘Ah yes, I was introduced to him,’ Gielgud said. ‘All in all, I think he has chosen his vocation wisely. He has a fine face for radio.’
Olga guffawed so loudly that Lucia winced delicately.
‘Talking of the Home Service,’ she ventured, ‘I am surprised of course that nobody thought to ask Georgie in the first place. I’m sure we all remember his rousing radio broadcasts during the war.’
‘I think, dear,’ Mapp said sweetly, as if by way of enlightenment, ‘that the organisers were looking for someone really famous.’
At this point Mr Wyse was heard to murmur something under his breath. Lucia said nothing, but fixed Mapp with the friendliest of smiles.
‘Personally,’ Coward said after gazing at Mrs Mapp-Flint as if pausing for reflection, ‘I became famous by writing a play about syphilis.’
Unsurprisingly this produced a hushed silence while everyone stared hard at their plates. Even Lucia’s legendary powers as a dinner party hostess failed her. Susan struggled gallantly to come to her rescue.
‘Fortunately,’ she proffered awkwardly, ‘we haven’t had a case of syphilis at the hospital for years.’
‘What a shame,’ Coward replied unexpectedly.
A further startled pause ensued, and then, as ever the master of timing, he delivered his punchline.
‘After all, it makes such a change from claret.’
‘I believe the Queen laughed when she heard that joke,’ Gielgud commented, once the delighted and relieved laughter had died down.
‘Really?’ asked Georgie.
‘Yes,’ Gielgud confirmed, staring hard at Noël, ‘and so did Prince Albert.’
Coward cocked an eyebrow over his raised wine glass as though he personally no longer cared to what insults he was exposed in the course of a single twenty-four hour period. Then he realised that Olga was gazing meaningfully at him once more.
‘Talking of jokes, Lucia,’ he said, ‘I never had a chance to thank you for that wonderful witticism, which you so kindly thought up for me. I used it as the centrepiece of a speech the other night and it brought the house down.’
‘Really?’ Lucia queried. ‘How gratifying.’
This seemed the best thing to say in the circumstances, though of course she had no idea what he was talking about, since Olga had not made her privy to her arrangements.
‘My only regret,’ Coward continued, ‘is that I lacked the honesty to tell my audience that they were enjoying not only my brilliance, but somebody else’s.’
He raised his glass to a further murmur of acclaim. Nobody had appreciated that in addition to all her other undoubted accomplishments, Lucia was a part-time gag writer for Noël Coward.
Mapp realised that a change of subject was required and stepped in quickly.
‘And what Shakespearean plans do you have at present, Mr Gielgud?’ she asked sweetly.
‘None really,’ he replied, looking vague, ‘though I shall probably do something at Stratford next year, and there is talk of some films.’
‘Some Shakespeare films?’ Olga asked. ‘How thrilling, Johnnie, which ones?’
‘Romeo and Juliet, I believe, and Julius Caesar.’
‘Romeo and Juliet?’ Diva queried doubtfully. Though Gielgud could look quite boyish in a certain light, he was surely too old to play a romantic teenager.
He clearly read her thoughts and gazed at her severely.
‘I would play the Chorus,’ he clarified.
‘And in Julius Caesar?’ asked Mr Wyse.
‘Cassius, I believe.’
‘Rather a small part, surely?’ Coward interjected.
This prompted another hard stare from Gielgud.
‘But a challenging one, I’m sure you will agree, Noël,’ he said rather icily.
Just as a hum of conversation started to swell around the table again, he reme
mbered something else.
‘Oh, and Larry is talking of doing a film of Garrick’s version of Richard III, but it’s still at a very early stage. Personally I can’t see it happening for a few years yet. He wants to try it out on stage first.’
A frisson ran through the company. They would have had to be very dense indeed not to realise that ‘Larry’ must be Laurence Olivier, whose film of Hamlet had recently caused such a sensation. Though not perhaps with Major Mapp-Flint, who had snored loudly beside his wife in the Ritz Cinema in Hastings from the grave-diggers’ scene onwards.
‘And what part would you play?’ Coward enjoined languidly.
‘Clarence, I think.’
‘Alas,’ he continued, equally languidly, ‘I confidently predict that you will overact most dreadfully.’
‘And why, pray?’ Gielgud challenged him.
‘Because you always do, dear boy,’ Coward said with a sigh, ‘you always do.’
So the meal proceeded delightfully, just as Lucia had always known it would ever since she had heard the undreamt-of news from Olga that not only had she persuaded Noël Coward to come and teach Elizabeth Mapp-Flint a lesson she wouldn’t forget, but also John Gielgud as a welcome bonus. She wondered briefly if she might possibly have misjudged Olga, but banished the thought swiftly from her mind with a firm shake of the head.
Suddenly Olga broached the subject of the mystery coach.
‘Now, do tell where you all ended up,’ she cried. ‘We’ve been simply beside ourselves ever since we found out that you all got on the wrong coach. We would have asked Cadman to chase after you, but of course we had no idea which way you had gone.’
‘But it wasnae the wrong coach at all,’ the Padre said, clearly puzzled. ‘Did it no’ bring us back to the gun platform?’
Now it was the turn of the Rolls-Royce contingent to look puzzled.
‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ Lucia said, but speaking for all of them.
‘Yes, you see it was the wrong coach,’ Georgie explained. ‘Our one arrived a few minutes after five, and I know it was our coach because I asked the driver to show me his paperwork and it said “Pillson” right enough.’
Everyone stared at him, and then at each other.
‘Just a silly mistake, surely?’ asked Elizabeth Mapp-Flint. ‘Presumably the coach company got in a muddle and sent two coaches instead of one?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Georgie demurred. ‘You see, we hired ours from Gillings – you know, the garage just out of town – and I happen to know he only has one coach, because he told me so.’
‘And the other one that turned up came from Hastings,’ Olga went on, ‘because that’s what it said on the side of the coach. That’s where we were afraid you might all have ended up.’
‘Just one of those things, you know,’ the Major said airily. ‘Coincidence, what?’
‘Most intriguing,’ Gielgud drawled. ‘One goes away from London for the weekend and finds oneself immediately embroiled in a mystery. Why, it’s straight out of Ngaio Marsh.’
‘Oh, everything happens in Tilling, John,’ Olga assured him with obvious sincerity. ‘It really is the most interesting place in the world. Mind you, I used to feel like that about Riseholme too, so it must have something to do with Lucia’s presence.’
This drew a spontaneous murmur of approval, though somewhat muted in the case of the Mapp-Flints, and a raising of glasses.
‘A mystery it is, though,’ Georgie said, ‘and I am determined to get to the bottom of it. It shouldn’t be too difficult, after all. I can remember that it came from Hastings and there can’t be too many coach companies there. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that the name of the firm also started with an “H”, so I can find it through directory enquiries, phone them and ask who hired the coach.’
After a pause, during which the dessert was brought in, Mapp spoke up.
‘Dear Mr Georgie, I think I can spare you the trouble. You see, I fear Benjy-boy and I may have been the innocent cause of today’s confusion.’
‘All a mistake, what?’ the Major contributed.
Lucia looked at Mapp with that expression of strained credulity which she had made all her own.
‘A mistake?’ she echoed.
‘Indeed, worship,’ gushed Mapp. ‘You see, Benjy and I had exactly the same idea to provide a coach to take people to the fête, but when we heard that you had got in ahead of us, so to speak, we naturally abandoned our little scheme.’
‘The deuced thing is,’ Major Benjy cut in, ‘that we wrote at once to the blighter in Hastings cancelling the trip, but it seems that our letter must have gone astray or not been attended to, so the damn coach – sorry, ladies – turned up anyway.’
‘I see,’ Lucia said.
The meaning of ‘I see’ communicated to the assembled company was, however, somewhat different to the conventional one of ‘Good, I’m so glad I understand that now.’ This may perhaps have had something to do with the glacial politeness with which it was uttered.
‘Better to telephone perhaps, Elizabeth,’ Susan Wyse proffered, out of a sense that someone really should say something.
‘Well, naturally we realise that now,’ Mapp said somewhat heatedly, possibly feeling that this comment was a slur on her veracity. ‘Oh yes, that’s all too clear.’
‘All the fault of that damn fool in Hastings, you see,’ the Major explained.
‘Really, what a coincidence, though,’ Lucia marvelled. ‘Just think of Elizabeth, tucked away on the marshes at Grebe, having exactly the same idea as little me here at Mallards at exactly the same time. That really is quite remarkable, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, that was exactly our thought too, worship,’ Mapp said. Clearly struggling with some sort of repressed emotion, she added, ‘or ex-worship, should I say?’
‘Coincidence, you see?’ the Major persisted. ‘Lots of it about, much more than you might think. Remember that woman who was giving French lessons? Coincidence.’
Gazing around him, he could not help but feel that he had lost his audience.
‘Well, coincidence it must have been then,’ Lucia commented graciously. ‘And now, once we have finished dessert, I wonder if dear Noël would favour us with a few of his songs?’
Equally graciously Noël said that he would be charmed and delighted, and so the evening that Noël Coward performed at Mallards passed into the annals of Tilling history as yet another triumph to have been organised and generously sponsored by Lucia. The generous sponsor did, however, wonder at certain points whether the lyrics were entirely suitable for female company, though she smiled broadly and giggled knowingly whenever the Major, Olga and Irene guffawed.
Afterwards Lucia announced ‘uno piccolo codettino’, and Georgie and Olga performed ‘Widmung’ and ‘An Die Musik’. Yet despite this cornucopia of musical delights, it was quite obvious that there would be only one subject on everyone’s lips as they gathered outside church the next morning: the remarkable conduct of Elizabeth Mapp-Flint in trying to sabotage Lucia’s generously provided transport arrangements.
As the Wyses said their farewells, Lucia remarked gently, ‘Poor Elizabeth, so sad,’ and Susan, charitable soul that she was, struggled desperately to think of something to offer by way of exculpation. Struggled, and failed.
Chapter 20
‘But Benjy, it’s so unfair!’ Elizabeth Mapp-Fint wailed the next morning, and not for the first time either. ‘We think of hiring a coach, somehow she hears about our idea and steals it, and then just because there’s a mix-up about cancelling our coach, everybody thinks we have stolen her idea, and somehow tried to steal her thunder.’
‘I’ll horsewhip any man who says so,’ said the Major fiercely. ‘Anyone who tries to blacken your name while I’m around will have Benjamin Mapp-Flint to deal with.’
She found the thought of Major Benjy dragging Lucia out of Mallards by her hair and horsewhipping her in the street comforting, not to mention strangely arousing. However, she
would take a long time to forgive or forget the incident when he had departed into town breathing fire and brimstone, armed with a riding crop intended for use upon the editor of the Tilling Gazette, only to end up consuming large amounts of his intended target’s whisky, and bringing him home for lunch uninvited, memorably introducing his wife as ‘the tiller of Pilling’ into the bargain. So, while such resolute support was always to be welcomed, she valued it more for the sentiments expressed than in the hope of actual execution.
‘Still,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘it was a pretty rum do that Coward chap turning up after all, wasn’t it?’
‘I do not wish to discuss that subject further,’ she replied abruptly.
The memory of having to explain to Noël Coward, when reintroduced to him in the evening, why she had thought him a rank impostor in the afternoon, would remain a painful one for some time.
‘Right-ho, then, old girl.’
Elizabeth stirred her tea vigorously, still trying to compose herself.
‘I say, though,’ he said suddenly, ‘you don’t think those coach johnnies in Hastings intend to charge us for that coach after all, do you?’
‘Let them try,’ hissed his wife, giving vent to her pent-up frustrations. ‘Just let them try. Why, we wrote to them and you posted it on Wednesday, so they would have received our cancellation on Thursday. Clearly whatever mistake occurred arose at their end, not ours. Gross incompetence, I call it. Yes, let them try!’
‘Quite right,’ seconded her husband.
He took up his pipe and thrust his hand into his right hand jacket pocket in search of his penknife with which to clean it out. He did not find what he was looking for; now he came to think of it, he had left it on the mantelpiece in the drawing room. However, his questing fingers did come into contact with what felt suspiciously like an envelope. He then experienced one of those middle-aged moments when one realises what one has forgotten to do during another middle-aged moment a few days previously. He wondered whether to broach this subject with the little woman but, wisely, decided against it.
Au Reservoir Page 20
