Lucia and the Diplomatic Incident: A Short Story based on the Novels of E.F. Benson (Tom Holt's Mapp and Lucia Series Book 3) Read online

  “How dreadful!” Diva exclaimed, and then quickly added, “the pneumonia, I mean, not the being back with us, which is quite delightful. Never had pneumonia myself, I’m delighted to say, but I’ve heard it can be ever so serious, especially in people of our – I mean, once one’s past the first flush, so to speak.”

  “Terrible thing, pneumonia,” intoned Major Benjy, positioned on and slightly behind Elizabeth’s right hand like a loyal knight. “In India I’ve seen men sicken with it in the morning and die before nightfall. Strong men cut down in the flower of their manhood,” he added with a shake of his head. “What a terrible experience, Miss Elizabeth. Are you quite sure you shouldn’t be in bed?”

  “Dear Major Benjy, so thoughtful,” Elizabeth purred. “What a fine nurser you would make if such a thing were needed. But no. I feel as fit as a fiddle and quite restored simply by being home again. And no, naughty Irene, I didn’t fall in the river as you so wickedly suggest.”

  “So what did happen?” Georgie clamoured, quite failing to notice the cold look in Lucia’s eye as he opened his mouth to speak. “If you didn’t fall in the river, what did you fall in? Or didn’t you fall in anything at all?”

  Elizabeth’s silvery peel of laughter marked the awkwardness of the enquiry, which was probably just as well.

  “An accident,” she replied, “most unfortunate, but no real harm done, thanks to a merciful Providence. Although,” she added artlessly, “at the time it was quite terrifying, I assure you.”

  “Ah hoots,” interrupted the Reverend Bartlett impatiently. “Can we no ken the nature of this accident Misstress Mapp. I feel sure we’re all dyin’ to hear or’t.”

  “Well”, Elizabeth replied, settling comfortably in her chair, “I dare say it was all trivial enough, what with no lives lost, thankfully enough, and no lasting injuries that I’m aware of. But I’m not ashamed to say that at the time I was quite terrified, particularly when the water started to gush in through the sides of the ship…”

  Diva let slip a frantic squeak of excitement, while Susan Wyse turned quite pale and felt in her handbag for her smelling salts.

  “What ship?” Georgie yipped. “Oh do stop tantalising us, Elizabeth, and start from the very beginning. And make sure you don’t leave anything out.”

  “Dear Mr Georgie!” Elizabeth replied indulgently. “Oh very well, since you insist. We were crossing the river on the ferry, just below Saint Mark’s – which, as I’m sure you know, in the very centre of the city. Unfortunately the captain – a most intemperate man, by the looks of him, as I remarked when I first went on board – entirely failed to notice a small fishing boat until quite the very last moment, and in his panic to avoid a collision he steered our ship into the side of an old stone bridge, tearing the most tremendous gash in her side. Of course,” she went on, with a sigh, “on board the ship there was the most dreadful panic as you can imagine, with people scrambling for the lifeboat and no regard whatsoever for the children and elderly people aboard. The Italians,” she added, with another sigh, “are by nature a volatile and temperamental race; or at least, “she added, with a conciliatory nod towards Mr and Mrs Wyse, “the lower orders. There was no decorum, no orderly procession to the lifeboat; all scurrying to and fro, like rats in a trap. Fortunately I had the good sense to stay exactly where I was or else I fear I might have been trampled in the rush.”

  An awed silence had fallen over the room, as if the shadow of disaster was looming over the entire company. Even Lucia felt a momentary feeling of disquiet, though whether for sympathy at the horrors described or for irritation at the thought that Miss Mapp might so easily have been drowned (but hadn’t), it was impossible to say. For her part, Elizabeth took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and then continued her narrative.

  “Of course,” she went on, “I could see from the start that there was no prospect of getting onto the lifeboat, and so I resolved to jump off the side as quickly as I could and get as far from the ship as possible before it went down. That way,” she continued, “I knew that I would increase my chances of being clear of the vessel when it finally did sink, and avoid the risk of being drawn down with it by the eddies of the water, which is of course one of the greatest risks in these situations.”

  At this Major Benjy nodded sagely, one experienced adventurer acknowledging the wisdom of another. Mr Wyse, who had been frowning for some time, muttered “Quite so,” in a polite tone. Georgie, who had just taken another biscuit, put it back on his plate with a shudder, knowing full well the adverse effects of great excitement on the digestion.

  “I was about to hurl myself from the ship,” Elizabeth went on, “when I noticed under one of the seats opposite a small child, cowering in floods of tears. The poor thing had evidently been quite abandoned by its mother, and since nobody else seemed to have noticed it I realised it was my duty to help. Of course, the poor thing spoke not a word of English, and try as I might I couldn’t seem to make it understand the peril we were all in. Finally, when the ship was beginning to lean over in the most alarming fashion and it was becoming nearly impossible to keep one’s footing on the deck, I had no alternative but to drag the child bodily from its hiding place and fling myself over the side, clutching the hapless infant, just as the ship finally subsided into the waves. Quite by chance I managed to lay hold of a passing fragment of driftwood, and not long afterwards we were rescued by a passing gondola and carried safely to shore. And that’s all there was to it, really,” Miss Mapp concluded simply, “except that I must have caught the most frightful cold, which in turn became pneumonia, and I ended up in the hospital.” She smiled bravely. “Such drama,” she added with a little laugh, “and so distressing. So you can tell what a great relief it is to be back in dear, quiet Tilling where such things simply do not happen. Would anybody care for more tea?”

  The news of Miss Mapp’s ordeal by water spread through the town at such a speed that by nightfall there was no other topic of conversation anywhere. Tradesmen and delivery boys dawdled outside Mallards as they passed, gawping up at the windows in hopes of a glimpse of the heroine of so great an adventure, and a journalist from the local newspaper was the first visitor next morning, emerging an hour and a quarter later with a dazed but determined expression, as of a man given a beatific if slightly confusing vision by some ancient oracle. The fruits of his labours, spread out on a table in the drawing room of Grebe, gave rise to an equally puzzled expression on the face of Lucia, as she read the account for the seventh time and carefully compared it with her own recollection of Elizabeth’s narrative, several volumes of the Encyclopaedia, and a veteran Baedeker borrowed in haste from Doctor Dobbie’s aunt. From the newspaper, she learned that Miss Mapp had refused a proffered decoration for gallantry from the Italian government, insisting that she had only done what any human being, or at least any Englishwoman, would have done in such circumstances (“And that’s one in the eye for dear Susan and her MBE,” Lucia reflected sombrely, “so perhaps it’s not a total disaster.”) From the atlas, she gathered the curious intelligence that St Mark’s Square was on the southern edge of the city and not, as Miss Mapp had suggested, in the centre; while Herr Baedeker supplied further details concerning ferry services, place-names and other matters that eventually removed the frown from Lucia’s face and replaced it with a glowing smile. In particular, she gathered that one of the main promenades of the city (which she had never herself visited) was called the Riva degli Schiavoni, commonly abbreviated to Riva, and that it ran from St Mark’s along the seaboard facing the distant prospect of the neighbouring islands. “Crossing the river indeed”, Lucia said aloud, closing the book with one finger in it to mark her place. “Now then, let’s see what he has to say about steamers. I don’t imagine for one moment that they carry lifeboats, but it’d be as well to check.”

  When Lucia joined the shoppers in the High Street next morning she could sense a coldness amounting almost to hostility, such as St Thomas might have encountered from the o
ther disciples after his distressing display of scepticism. She ignored it, and asked solicitously after dear Elizabeth’s health.

  “A little better, I’m delighted to say,” said Susan Wyse, “and bearing up remarkably well considering her awful experience. Such fortitude, and we almost had to drag the story from her. I’m sure if I had done such a very brave thing, I should have wanted to shout it from the rooftops.”

  Dismissing the enticing vision of Susan Wyse, dripping wet in a bedraggled fur coat, announcing deeds of valour from the roofs of Venice, Lucia nodded, said “Quite so,” and was about to change the subject when she caught sight of Withers coming out of the Post Office with a basket over her arm. As she crossed the road, an envelope dropped from the basket and fell in a puddle. Since Withers appeared not to have noticed the incident, Lucia, having made her excuses to dear Susan, darted across the road and rescued the letter, plucking it from the muddy pool as if it had been Elizabeth herself, snatched from the fatal if indeterminate waters of the lagoon. Here was a quandary. Withers, walking quickly, had passed on up the street, so that Lucia would have had to run fast to catch up with her; yet the letter was sopping wet, and if allowed to remain in its sodden envelope, would surely become quite spoilt. There was nothing else to be done but open it, and take the risk that she might inadvertently set eyes on some private and confidential matter that Elizabeth would rather she didn’t see. Having first made sure that she was unobserved, therefore, she opened the envelope. Her first apprehensions had been groundless; the envelope had kept out the worst of the moisture, and the contents (a cheque and some sort of bill) were none the worse for their immersion. The obvious thing to do would be to reseal them in a fresh envelope and post them on, and with this in mind Lucia glanced at the address, which was still just discernible despite the running of the ink. What she read made Lucia raise her eyebrows in puzzlement. Then she pressed her lips firmly together, quickly pocketed the envelope and its contents, and set out at once for Grebe.

  “What a delightful surprise,” cried Miss Mapp, as Lucia walked into the drawing room of Mallards. “Always a delight to see you Lucia dearest, but if perhaps in future you might take the trouble to telephone, or send a message …”

  “Of course,” Lucia replied brightly. “But under the circumstances I felt it would be better not to wait. After all, I wouldn’t want to be accused of hindering His Majesty’s Mails. I believe that’s a criminal offence and I should hate to end up in prison.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t quite sure how she should take that. In any case there was something distinctly odd about Lucia’s demeanour, which was scarcely the attitude of one come to sue for peace from a victorious, if magnanimous opponent. Rather, she seemed excited to the point of feverishness, and for a moment Miss Mapp felt a slight qualm of unease. It was unlike Lucia to betray any outward signs of triumph even when she was undoubtedly in the ascendant, and such a mien from one who was definitely on the defensive, if not completely subdued, was hard to fathom.

  “What an odd thing to say!” she exclaimed therefore. “Do sit down and tell me all about it.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing important,” Lucia replied, taking out two folded pieces of paper and laying them before her with the quiet air of satisfaction of a general presenting his defeated enemy with the articles of surrender. “Withers dropped a letter in a puddle in the High Street. I picked it up. I had to take it out of the envelope to prevent it from being quite ruined, but I think I was in time.”

  For a moment, Elizabeth wasn’t quite sure whether she was awake or caught in some horrible dream, for there on the table before her were two pieces of paper she never thought to see again; a cheque, and a bill from the Commercial Hotel, Southampton, in respect of three week’s board and lodging and the services of a local doctor during her recent unfortunate illness. There was, of course, just the slightest chance that Lucia hadn’t read them; or if she had, then she hadn’t compared the dates on the bill with the period of Elizabeth’s supposed absence in the Most Serene Republic; or if she’d done that, that she hadn’t extrapolated from them the ugly fact that when she had been supposed to be in Venice, glorying in the antique splendour of the queen of cities and saving small children from a watery tomb, she had, in fact, been imprisoned in a cheap hotel in Southampton with an uncomfortable and undignified gastric disorder, which had deprived her of her holiday and left her feeling weak and extremely miserable until inspiration had shown her the way to turn the disaster into a glorious opportunity. All these things were possible, but not, Elizabeth felt, likely.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I haven’t looked at any of it, of course,” Lucia went on, in a tone of voice that completely belied her words. “And I hope you’ll excuse my impertinence in opening your private correspondence, but I hope I was acting for the best.”

  “Oh, quite,” Elizabeth replied, her eyes still glued to the loathsome documents in front of her. All that was left, she knew, was for Lucia to pronounce her doom, the precise form that her immolation was to take. Would it be a brief announcement at some hurriedly summoned gathering at which she need not be present, or would the wretched woman insist on a full public confession? And which would be worse, to have to say the fateful words herself, or for Lucia to tell the story behind her back, with all the undoubted command of language and gesture that she possessed?

  “I have to say,” Lucia went on, “that you don’t look at all well, in spite of what you say the doctors have told you. Have you consulted a doctor since you left Italy? I must confess, my own experiences of Italian medicine leave me with grave reservations concerning competence. To be ill in one’s own land is bad enough,” she added, with a sideways glance at the folded bill, “but sickness abroad is always so much more wearing. You poor thing,” she added. Elizabeth didn’t reply, or at least not in words; she may have made some inarticulate sound. Lucia smiled at her and went on. “If you want my opinion,” she said, “I would take another holiday to recuperate. A nice long holiday, somewhere cosy, like Harrogate. Or Stroud, which I believe is quite charming at this time of year.”

  “What a splendid idea,” Miss Mapp croaked. “I might just do that.”

  “Of course,” Lucia continued remorselessly, “such a holiday would prove frightfully expensive, particularly if one had just been put to the cost of doctor’s bills and the like.”

  “Indeed,” Elizabeth replied. “Such vultures!” she added, bitterly.

  “So,” Lucia went on, folding her hands in a revoltingly businesslike manner, “what do you think of the idea of letting Mallards to me while you’re away? That way, you’d be able to afford the rest cure you so obviously need, and I – well, this is such a pleasant house, and so well situated for visiting friends and entertaining. Don’t you think that would be the perfect solution?”

  Miss Mapp was still and quiet for a very long time, as if digesting some unpleasant but necessary medicine. Silently she cursed all the agents of her nemesis, from the bad omelette she’d eaten on the train to Southampton, to Withers’ criminal negligence, right down to the hateful credulity of her friends that had virtually urged her to carry on embroidering the original tale until it had become an ineluctable snare for her own feet. Most of all, however, she cursed Lucia, thoroughly and in fine detail, as she thought of her entertaining her friends in her house, supplanting her in her own fastness until, when she finally condescended to allow the exile to return, there would be absolutely nothing left. Then she caught sight of the terrible documents on the table in front of her and, closing her eyes, she bowed her head to the inevitable.

  “That would be most acceptable,” she said humbly. “Would you care for some tea?”

  Photo by Shelley Humphries

  Tom Holt was born in 1961 in London, England.

  His first book, Poems By Tom Holt, was published when he was twelve years old. While he was still a student at Oxford he wrote two sequels to E F Benson’s Lucia series. After an undistinguished seven-year stint as a lawyer
, he became a full-time writer in 1995 and has published over thirty novels.

  Tom lives with his wife and daughter in the west of England. As well as writing, he raises pigs and pedigree Dexter cattle.

  For more information, go to tomholt.coffeetownpress.com.