An Ill Wind...

BACK TO "THE BENSON BASE" An Ill Wind…
by P.A.Bines.
Based on characters created by E.F.Benson.
This story (c) 2002 P.A.Bines
- - - It is an unwritten law that an air raid siren will sound just as one is sitting down to dine. It was, therefore, hardly surprising that the guests of the chatelaine of Mallards, quite possibly the finest house in the small town of Tilling, should react with dismay at the thought of having to take shelter in the cellars of that house, rather than partaking of the sumptuous feast being laid before them. Emmeline Pilson, or Lucia as those around her had become accustomed to calling her, the aforementioned chatelaine, was made of sterner stuff, however, and as she led her guests down into the depths of the Queen Anne house, she gave orders that the wine and what ever courses were ready should be brought down also. Thus it was that a more casual dinner party took place, amongst the boxes and bottles and sacks of coal. Unfortunately, the soup tureen was overturned on the way downstairs, but the Horseradish, Potato and Powdered Egg Pie (one of Georgie’s radio recipes) survived the trip, and was presently served to the assembled guests, sitting on upturned chests.
“Another triumph, Georgie!” cried Lucia, as she managed to force down some of the, frankly, unappetising concoction. “How you come up with these recipes I will never know!”
“Well, I must let you all into a little secret”, confided Georgie Pilson, Lucia’s mio sposo and closest confidant, “I don’t. There is a small team of people from the Ministry who work out what can be done, an the pass the details on to me.” Georgie paused, somewhat sheepishly. “I really have very little involvement now.” He sounded so disheartened by this thought that everyone made consoling comments on how he must not run himself down, though a keen observer would have seen Elisabeth Mapp-Flint give Diva Plaistow a fleeting glance, of the sort that spoke volumes on the subject of “I told you so”.
Luckily, the “Mock Lobster a la Tilling” which WAS one of Georgies own recipes, and included a most ingenious use of cauliflower, stale breadcrumbs, vegetable stock and snoek, proved to be far more palatable, and conversations soon moved onto favourite recipes.
“My Aunt Caroline” began Mrs Mapp-Flint, “was quite a wonder with the recipe book. Her Redcurrant Fool was renowned, and her ability to concoct entertaining and enjoyable delicacies from the most economical ingredients was the marvel of her friends!”
“Your Aunt was indeed most talented, from what I can gather from your memories of her!” said the Padre, who was more than familiar with dear Elisabeth’s memories of her aunt’s virtues. If Elisabeth was to be believed, Caroline Mapp was practically a saint, so virtuous and creative was she. Whilst not the topic of every conversation, Aunt Caroline was frequently introduced into discussions of high morals, particularly when Elisabeth was at risk of being impressed by some minor accomplishment of her friends and neighbours.
Conversation, and the indoor ‘picnic’ continued for some time, and the party had quite forgotten their surroundings, save only for Elisabeth, who had somewhat painfully discovered a rather large splinter in her crate and who was, therefore, somewhat uncomfortable.
The explosion, when it came, was so loud as to blank out the world, and so violent as to shake the very foundations, at least as far as the occupants of Mallard’s cellar cum shelter cum impromptu dining room, and it was a full five minutes before anyone could assume any sort of control over the situation. The gas lanterns had been knocked to the ground and had, thankfully, been extinguished by the small pool of soup (which was fortunate, for had just one of the lamps remained lit, there was no telling how quickly a fire might have taken hold). First Major Benjy, then Lucia and Mr Wyse, then the Padre stood up and brushed themselves down. Elisabeth was helped to her feet by Quaint Irene Coles, who took from her pocket a hip flask of brandy, which she passed around. The Major took a swig, although he swiftly passed the flask onto the Padre when he observed the gimlet eye of his wife upon him.
“What can have happened” asked the gimlet eyed one, “Have we been hit?”
“Surely not” replied the Padre, all trace of a Scottish accent lost from his voice. “If it had been a direct hit upon the house, then surely there would be more damage here. At this moment, the cellar door opened, and Grosvenor (who had been taking shelter in the Anderson occupying the Giardino Segreto) called down, “Mrs Lucas? Are you all right?”
Lucia was the model of calm, and her first thought, truly her first thought, was devoted to Georgie and her guests. She called up the stairs to where Grosvenor, Foljambe, Cadman and Cook all stood, peering down “We are all perfectly fine, although some assistance will be required Bring down some lights so that we can see out way up; the cellar has become something of a jumble!”
The dinner party ascended the steps (somewhat unsteadily in the case of the Major, who had taken advantage of the situation to take a quick swig from an opened bottle of hock wine), to find that, whatever else had happened, Mallards itself was intact. The same could not be said, however, for the Garden Room… --- Early the next morning, Lucia and Georgie went to inspect the damage, which was considerable. There to meet them were members of the Tilling Home Guard, and the senior fire brigade officer, who gave his report. At around 9.15pm, a German bomber, returning from a failed attempt to inflict further damage to London, had passed over Rye and had jettisoned it’s one remaining bomb. This bomb had fallen straight through the roof of the Garden Room, and had promptly exploded. Whilst the explosive force was not such as to cause damage to neighbouring buildings, it was sufficient to almost completely flatten the Garden Room, and the contents. All that remained were some rather large piles of rubble, and a lot of splintered wood.
As the officer left, accompanied by the Home Guard representatives, Quaint Irene appeared, sketch pad in hand. “Lucia, Darling!” she cried as she approached, “I had to come to see what the damage was, and to record it, if you don’t object? Barbarism such as this MUST be recorded!”
“Of course you may sketch it, “replied Lucia, “and I should so much like to see a copy, though it upsets me to see to what end my Garden Room has come.”
Elisabeth Mapp-Flint arrived just in time to hear this sad little comment, and her smile, whilst sympathetic for Lucia’s loss, tightened just a little; for Lucia’s lamented ‘lost’ Garden Room had once been hers, and before her, had been Aunt Caroline’s. “Lucia, dear one, How distressing to see OUR Garden Room, in which my dear Aunt Caroline spent many happy hours, reduced to such a state! However, Benjy and I have come along to help you clear up the mess, and I believe that Diva will also be along soon, and the Padre.”
Soon, much of Tilling society was engaged in the task of recovering what few items survived the impact of the bomb; these items were removed to the hallway, where Grosvenor and Foljambe cleaned and inspected them.
The piano, of course, was completely destroyed, but by some miracle, the piano stool, in which she kept her music, had somehow survived. Some of the sheets of music had, alas, become detached from their bindings, and were being gently blown around by a slight breeze; Georgie, with a burst of inspiration, sent Foljambe to fetch his butterfly net, and with the aid of this tool, was able to recover much that threatened to be lost. Oddly, there seemed to be more sheets than Lucia had had stored in the stool; indeed, Georgie was not the only person to recover pages, which appeared to contain something other than musical notation. Diva, in particular, had managed to capture some dozen or so pages, as had Elisabeth. --- Eventually, all that could be retrieved had been retrieved, and the ‘rescue party’, after partaking of Lucia’s hospitality (tea, much to the Major’s disappointment), went their separate ways, leaving Lucia and Georgie to piece together the music sheets into recognisable collections, ready for rebinding at a more opportune moment.
“That’s odd!” exclaimed Georgie, who had been working on a collection of Mozart pieces, “This seems not to be music at all! It appears to be more like an entry in a journal or diary. Listen to this,” he said, and started to read what few lines he could make out upon the singed and damaged page.
"There is a heading; ‘The Intimate Journal of C’. It doesn’t appear to be the first page though. I can make out a few lines; ‘ ...a harem in Baghdad...’" he read, "’...across the Black Sea in a fishing boat with naught but a fisherman's smock and a 12 bore shotgun...a night of torrid...’ no, I can’t make that out. Oh, hang on, here’s another bit” he continued, reading from another page, “’…at Tranby Croft… nowhere to turn…horrendous scandal if it ever came out…the Prince of Wales…’”
Lucia interrupted. Georgie, “I have another page here. ‘it seems to be a little more intact that those pages you have! It has the same heading, so it MUST be from the same thing. ‘With a thrill I realised that the Cossack approved of my actions, and was beckoning me to join his party in the festivities then taking place. How could I refuse? I have always preferred the company of the’ no, I can’t make that bit out ‘to the idle gentility of Tilling,, and the restrictions placed upon an adventurous woman eager to experience life to the full.’”
Lucia looked up and stared at Georgie. Simultaneously, they spoke “It’s Aunt Caroline!”
The full impact of the pages was more than readily apparent to both Lucia and Georgie; the Sainted and revered Aunt Caroline was an adventuress, not the quiet and refined lady of which Elisabeth so proudly spoke. She was a lady with what appeared to be a reputation, although exactly what sort of reputation it was difficult to tell from these few fragmentary jottings.
It was Georgie who broke the silence “Do you think Elisabeth knows?” he asked.
Lucia shook her head. “I don’t know Georgie”, she replied, “but I very much doubt it. She wouldn’t draw attention so often to Aunt Caroline if she even suspected the truth.” Lucia paused, “The question is, do we tell her?”
Georgie remembered the events of the day. “I think that if she didn’t know before, she probably does now. She picked up a few pages too, as did Diva and the Padre. They MUST have seen that it wasn’t music; they MUST have been intrigued, as we were.”
“Georgie, let me sleep on this. We must decide what to do, but it is late and me’s vewwy tired.” --- The next morning, all of Tilling, (at least all that mattered) were discussing the pages from the Garden Room which, it now appeared, had been recovered by everyone involved in the ‘clean up party’
The only party not present to discuss the matter was Elisabeth Mapp-Flint herself, who had spent most of the night reading and re-reading the large number of pages she had recovered. She had come to exactly the same conclusion as Lucia and Georgie, she had also realised that she was, in all likelihood, not alone in making the discovery, and she fretted all night about how best to handle the situation.
Eventually, just as everyone was about to return, shopping baskets empty, (but gossip baskets full!), the Major and his wife appeared in the High Street, and were observed entering the greengrocers. As they left the shop (with such vegetables as were permitted by the ration book) they noticed the small gathering on the opposite side of the street, and the Mapp-Flints resolved to meet the crisis head on. At the centre of the group was, of course, Lucia, with Georgie by her side; she was holding a sheaf of manuscript pages, and seemed to be collecting more from the Padre, Diva and Quaint Irene. “Ah! Elisabeth!” Lucia trilled, “Just the person I was hoping to meet!”
The Mappish smile intensified. “Why would that be, dearest Lucia”
“Well,” Lucia’s voice changed to its familiar drawl. “Whilst rummaging through the wreckage of our beautiful Garden Room, Georgie and I found these manuscript pages.” Elisabeth suppressed a wince of displeasure. “and, whilst going through the recovered items last night, I realised what they were.” This time a slight shudder was suppressed, though poorly. “I believe you used to let Mallards during the summer months?” Elisabeth nodded, although as Lucia was, originally, one of those, to whom the aforementioned property had been let, there was no need for belief; one did not need to believe when there was hard fact available. “Georgie suggested that this was what must have happened, and I am, I must say, convinced. One of your previous tenants must have been a novelist, who was working on a book whilst he was staying in Mallards. HE left it behind him, and it must have fallen behind some item of furniture” Patently untrue, as Lucia had installed all the furniture when she moved in. “The explosion must have caused it to dislodge from it’s hiding place and so here it is!” Lucia held up the collection of papers. “I, of course, have no idea who let the house before I moved in, but perhaps you have a record? Might you be able to return this to him? It is plainly a first draft, and one of poor quality, but I’m sure that the author would be pleased to have it back. Can I leave it in your hands then?” Lucia smiled and looked at Elisabeth, and in an instant Elisabeth knew that Lucia knew. Lucia was saving Elisabeth, and Elisabeth must graciously accept her saviour’s action.
“But of course, dear one!” she said, taking the papers and placing them firmly into her basket, “Benjy and I will return immediately to see if we can find the name and address of the forgetful author!”
The group dispersed, in a variety of moods; Some to silently bemoan the fact that they had been deprived of the most salacious gossip in ages, others to reflect upon the motive behind magnanimity, and others… Well, Georgie spoke for the others when he asked Lucia over tea “Why?”
“Because in time of crises” Lucia replied, “there is no need for more suffering.” Georgie, who had probably been the most disappointed at the loss of the Aunt Caroline gossip, found he had no reason to doubt Lucia’s sincerity. --- Later, MUCH later, Lucia removed from the lid of the piano stool one solitary fragment of manuscript. “I have always believed in living life to the fullest measure, despite the misgivings of my family and friends. The things I have done, I have done, not with the intention to shock, but with the intention of living.” "I think," Lucia thought, as she tucked the page back into the lid, "I would have liked Aunt Caroline…"

-O-

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