Authors: Guy Fraser-Sampson
There was silence as her exhortations towards more noble sentiments and more manly conduct died away.
‘Angel,’ breathed Irene admiringly.
‘Mrs Pillson as always,’ Mr Wyse commented with a bow in her direction, ‘reminds us of our neighbourly instincts, and the Reverend of our Christian duty.’
‘Well, there we are,’ Mapp said, beaming widely once again. ‘Benjyboy and I must away to the post office. By the way, worship, you will be glad to hear that I have taken your advice to heart about weekend house guests. Why, I have just had an invitation accepted from a very charming man for the weekend after the bridge tournament.’
‘I am delighted to hear it, Elizabeth,’ Lucia replied. ‘And naturally you must bring him to my tea party on the Saturday.’
‘Thank you, dear, I’m sure we would all love to come.’
The Mapp-Flints and the Pillsons parted in opposite directions, both hoping for their entirely different reasons that the whole issue of professional players had now been settled and discarded. In this, however, they were all to be disappointed.
As they walked away discussion broke out anew behind them. Discussion which rapidly became first intense and then animated, with Quaint Irene waving her pipe for emphasis. Clearly Lucia’s regal strictures had not made so strong an impact upon her subjects as she would have wished.
‘O
h, drat the woman!’ Georgie exclaimed to Lucia as they sat together after lunch. ‘It really is uncanny the way she dogs our footsteps. It’s almost as though she knows what we’re thinking.’
‘Agreed, Georgie. Why, if all the staff hadn’t been with us for years, then one could almost imagine that there was a spy in our midst.’
‘Oh, I can’t imagine Foljambe doing anything like that,’ Georgie expostulated. ‘Why, she’s been with me since the very beginning, when I first bought my house in Riseholme.’
Being of a delicate disposition, and very attached to Foljambe, there were in fact various things which he did not like to imagine her doing.
‘As has Grosvenor,’ Lucia reminded him severely, ‘
and
Cook,
and
Cadman.’
‘Yes, I know, the very idea is preposterous,’ Georgie agreed. ‘But the fact remains that she’s got us into a jolly awkward situation.’
‘I really don’t see that, Georgie,’ Lucia said. ‘In fact, I rather think she’s got us out of one. All we have to do is telegram our two professionals, agreeing to pay them anyway but asking them to come with two other professionals as a team of four and not to mention our prior arrangement.’
‘Pay all four, you mean?’ Georgie asked.
‘If necessary,’ Lucia responded briskly, ‘though I expect there will be lots of professionals out there who will be happy to come and play just for the lure of the cash prize.’
‘You are wonderful, Lucia,’ he said, gazing at her fondly. ‘You seem to be able to find an elegant solution to every problem.’
She smiled back at him and was about to lapse into an ickle bit of baby talk when Grosvenor knocked and entered the room.
‘Mr Wyse, madam,’ she announced.
‘Dear lady,’ Mr Wyse said, showing distinct signs of nervousness as he was ushered into the room, ‘a thousand pardons for disturbing you in the middle of the afternoon.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ Lucia reassured him. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
Mr Wyse perched irresolutely on the edge of a chair. Wearing royal blue velvet plus fours with a matching jacket, he brought to mind a fidgety child being adjured to pose for a portrait by Gainsborough.
‘I come by way of a delegation,’ he began, ‘on what is, I confess, a most delicate and troubling matter.’
‘Would you rather that I left you two alone?’ offered Georgie.
He had a sudden premonition that Mr Wyse’s visit might concern Susan, and shuddered at the thought of having to listen to female medical conditions being described. Nor, of course, did he wish to embarrass Mr Wyse in such a case.
‘Thank you, no,’ came the reply. ‘In fact, what I have to say very much concerns you both.
‘The bridge tournament,’ he went on, ‘appears to have become the subject of much discord. The news that our friends the Mapp-Flints propose to enter the competition with professionals as teammates has aroused strong passions.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Lucia with a concerned expression. ‘Yes, I was afraid that might be the case. Poor Elizabeth can be rather impetuous sometimes. She really should have stopped to consider what effect such action might have on the esteem in which she is regarded socially.’
‘Quite so,’ Mr Wyse agreed, ‘though,’ he went on hastily, ‘I personally hold the Mapp-Flints in the highest esteem.’
‘As do we all,’ Lucia seconded warmly.
‘Quite so,’ Mr Wyse said again. ‘I am relieved that we are agreed on that, as it makes my task that much easier.’
‘Do go on,’ Lucia urged him.
‘I am afraid,’ he said sadly, ‘that popular opinion seems to be much inflamed against that couple. Between the three of us, I believe that this is partly because of Mrs Mapp-Flint’s, well,
stance
over the fête, coupled of course with the curious business of the coach.’
‘And so this is in the nature of the last straw?’ Georgie interjected.
‘In a sense, yes. I certainly think there has been an accumulation of actions by Mrs Mapp-Flint which, viewed with the benefit of hindsight, might be considered to have been unwise, or even intemperate.’
When Mr Wyse gave judgement in such magisterial style, it was usual for those present to sit quietly for a few moments and nod sagely in agreement, which Lucia and Georgie duly did.
‘But what’s to be done?’ Georgie asked then. ‘Surely there’s no suggestion of the Mapp-Flints being tarred and feathered, or sending them to Coventry, or anything like that?’
‘Such sentiments were expressed by Miss Coles,’ Mr Wyse admitted painfully, ‘but happily wiser counsel prevailed.’
He wrinkled his nose, which was his usual sign of social distress. ‘Here I fear I come to the embarrassing part. You see, both the suggestions which have been advanced would involve you and Mr Pillson in significant expense. Indeed, there seems almost to have been an underlying assumption that you would be happy to incur such expense, which I had occasion to speak quite sharply about.’
The thought of Mr Wyse speaking sharply to anyone was a novel one, and Lucia wondered briefly just what sort of language might have been employed. Dismissing the thought, she waved a hand gracefully with a smile, as though swatting away any potential embarrassment.
‘Do go on,’ she said.
‘The first suggestion,’ he said, ‘is that you might be prepared generously to make available a further prize, or perhaps trophy, to the highest placed team that does not contain a single professional. I put this forward very diffidently as, of course, Susan and I would of course be playing in just such a team.’
‘An inspired suggestion,’ Lucia cried, clapping her hands. ‘It shall be done! Let me write it down at once.’
‘The other suggestion,’ Mr Wyse went on as she wrote briefly but intensely in her notebook, ‘is, I fear, even more presumptuous.’
He hesitated but then went on.
‘This suggestion is, I freely confess, not of my own making, and I am all too conscious that it may smack of, well, childishness frankly, but I have undertaken to deliver it nonetheless.’
Lucia looked at him expectantly. So did Georgie. In his experience childish suggestions were often spiteful, so listening to them was always fun.
‘The proposal is,’ Mr Wyse said carefully, ‘that you and Mr Pillson might similarly engage the services of a pair of professional bridge players and thus steal the Mapp-Flints’ thunder, as you might say.’
‘No!’ said Lucia and Georgie instinctively.
Mistaking their emotion for disapproval at such a petty proposal being put forward, Mr Wyse looked wretched.
‘I know, I know,’ he said, literally wringing his hands, ‘but I did undertake to deliver the message. I thought it best to do so, as the alternative might have been a most unfortunate scene when the Mapp-Flints next venture into town.’
‘Dear Mr Wyse,’ Lucia said warmly. ‘Never was a man more aptly named. How sensible! How pragmatic!’
‘Then you are not offended by the suggestion?’ he ventured timidly.
‘Not in the least,’ Lucia assured him. ‘If that is the general will then I will be happy to accede to it, though like you I naturally deplore the sense of ill-will which lies behind it.’
‘Oh, I say,’ Georgie suddenly said, ‘I do believe I have an even better idea.’
‘Indeed,
caro mio
?’ Lucia asked.
‘Well, see what you think, Mr Wyse,’ Georgie said. ‘If the motive is to upstage the Mapp-Flints, then why don’t we go the whole hog and hire the best two professionals we can find? You know, champions, or something like that?’
‘Georgie, how brilliant,’ Lucia enthused.
‘I do believe you have hit upon something, Mr Pillson,’ Mr Wyse acknowledged with a little seated bow. ‘The
reductio ad absurdam
which you propose would undoubtedly prove most popular with … with those who made the suggestion in the first place.’
‘Well,’ Lucia said doubtfully, ‘that may prove a rather tall order at such short notice, but rest assured, Mr Wyse, that we will do everything we can. No stone shall be left unturned in our urgent quest for two currently unengaged champion bridge professionals. I will begin telegramming at once. How you all work me so.’
Mr Wyse’s sense of relief was palpable as he took his leave and Lucia herself showed him out. As she stood waving at her front door, she called lightly after him, ‘No promises, mind!’
‘Bit rum that, I thought,’ Major Benjamin Mapp-Flint said to his wife that evening after dinner.
‘What, Benjy?’ she replied absently, looking up at him over glasses from some figures she was jotting down.
‘All that kerfuffle about us playing with a couple of pros,’ he said indignantly. ‘Anyone would think we were proposing to dig up the graves in the churchyard or something. Hasn’t a man got a right to play with anyone he wants to?’
‘It’s envy pure and simple,’ Mapp said briskly. ‘Envy that we thought of it and nobody else did. Envy that we are going to do better than they are – and envy, of course, about the cash prize, which we may now quite possibly win while they most certainly won’t.’
‘Quai-Hai!’ growled the Major contentedly at the thought of the cash prize. The five pounds which he had extracted earlier from his wife had served merely to reduce the balance of his bar bill to more acceptable proportions. He had of course made it clear to the manager that an officer and a gentleman was unaccustomed to having his credit thrown into question, but the wretched oik was unmoved, simply accepting the white banknote, proffering a receipt and saying, ‘Good day to you, Major,’ very drily indeed. Damned insolence.
‘Expensive, though, what?’ he commented.
The Major knew that, rather like her mother’s famed Blumenfeld piano, his wife had certain keys which, if pressed, could be relied upon to produce certain noises, most of them discordant.
‘Ruinous, more like,’ she squawked. ‘However,’ she went on less aggressively, ‘by having them to stay at Grebe we will save on the cost of putting them up in a hotel. That reminds me, I must tell Withers to get another swede for dinner.’
‘Don’t forget the cash prize, Liz-girl,’ he said.
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she assured him, ‘but there’s no guarantee that we’ll win it, of course.’
‘But what if we do?’ he pressed her. ‘After all, we must be in with a chance, what with playing with professionals and everything.’
‘I’ve just been making some calculations. If we win the prize – and it’s a big if, mind – then most of it will cover the cost of hiring our teammates.’
‘With something left over, surely?’ the Major asked. ‘They can’t be that expensive.’
‘With a little something left over, certainly,’ Mapp grudgingly admitted.
Once again the Major felt able to surrender himself to visions of chota pegs taken on sun-dappled verandas while dusky beauties draped themselves in willowy fashion over cane furniture. This pleasing vista was, however, torn cruelly from sight by his wife’s next words.
‘Perhaps even enough to have the drains seen to,’ she said.
The Major gaped uncomprehendingly.
‘Drains?’ he croaked. ‘Drains?’
‘Yes, drains, Benjy. Haven’t you noticed how much trouble we’ve been having with them lately? Why, my bathwater took simply ages to soak away last night.’
‘But, dash it all, Liz. Drains? I mean to say, they’re jolly useful things and all that, but hardly top of one’s agenda, what? I was thinking of a nice little sea voyage, India perhaps. Always wanted to show you India, old girl.’
‘Nice of you,’ his wife replied curtly, ‘but you’ve obviously forgotten how travel by sea disagrees with me. Surely you remember how seasick I was in the Channel coming back from Italy?’
‘Ah,’ he responded, ‘now you come to mention it, I had forgotten. Well, maybe I could go by myself, then. Only for the health, you understand. Been feeling jolly peaky recently, now I think about it.’
Mapp treated this pathetic bid for freedom with the contempt it deserved.
‘Drains,’ she said firmly, ‘and it’s no good you looking like that, Benjy. You’d soon notice if you didn’t have them.’
The Major expressed the view sotto voce that he would in fact be quite happy to do without drains if necessary. Come to think of it, he still had that old thunderbox around somewhere. In the attic perhaps?
‘What are you muttering about?’ his wife enquired.
‘I was just thinking we could dust off my old thunderbox if you like,’ he offered.
She looked blank, as well she might.
‘Earth closet, you know. Portable too. Jolly useful – you can move it around.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said sharply. ‘Earth closet, indeed. Sometimes I wonder about you, Benjy, I really do.’
This was the closest Major Benjamin Mapp-Flint would ever come to returning to the haunting, sun-drenched haunts of his youth. Which was perhaps just as well, for Indian Muslims were busily massacring trainloads of Indian Hindus who were travelling to live with their fellow Hindus, while Indian Hindus were busily massacring trainloads of Indian Muslims who were travelling to live with their fellow Muslims. It seemed to occur to nobody that simply allowing the trains to reach their destinations could in fact have fulfilled everybody’s aspirations.