Major Benjy Read online

  Major Benjy

  Major Benjy

  A Mapp and Lucia novel

  Guy Fraser-Sampson

  First published 2013 by Elliott and Thompson Limited

  27 John Street, LondonWC1N 2BX

  www.eandtbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-908739-70-4

  Text © Guy Fraser-Sampson 2013. Originally published by Troubadour Publishing, 2008.

  The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of thisWork.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset by Marie Doherty

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  This edition is not for sale in the United States of America.

  Chapter 1

  The picturesque town of Tilling perches confidently on a rocky outcrop that once jutted proudly out to sea, making it an ideal setting for a constant game of hide-and-seek between smugglers and customs men. Alas, the natural harbour which had been the town’s raison d’être silted up, and the English Channel gradually retreated, leaving behind only salt marshes and colonies of vociferous gulls. Despite these vicissitudes of history, however, Tilling remains a popular and attractive place of residence for ladies and gentlemen of refined tastes, and its landmarks, such as the Landgate, the gun platform and the delightful church, offer ready subjects for what they typically refer to in self-deprecating fashion as their ‘daubs’.

  Had one been standing on top of the church tower one spring morning, one would have seen the blackness of the night sky beginning to acquire a distinctly purplish tinge over the Kentish marshes to the east, which could perhaps have been conveyed by some rather daring sponging with cobalt violet, before turning rapidly into a pinkish-grey mistiness, which would in all conscience have required talent of Turneresque proportions to portray, talents far beyond those even of candidates considered by the Tilling hanging committee. However, even while their hesitant hands had been reaching for the permanent magenta, the pure pale sunlight for which Tilling is justly famous would have spread rapidly across the landscape below like a giant rug being unfurled, and the town would have acquired the appearance by which it was instantly recognisable from any number of paintings. Apart, that is, from those of Irene Coles, universally known as Quaint Irene, who, while being Tilling’s only acknowledged professional artist, seemed to perceive Tilling somewhat differently from the mere mortals around her, and whose views of the High Street could inexplicably involve large numbers of naked people dancing around a burning town hall while winged and clawed ghoulies, some of which might bear an amazing though surely accidental resemblance to various worthy Tilling residents, hovered and screeched overhead.

  Sadly, though, nobody was standing on the church tower to admire this artistic kaleidoscope unfolding, since it was generally recognised that polite society in Tilling did not rise before nine, at which time one might decently draw back one’s curtains and consume a hearty breakfast. It was, however, understood and accepted that Miss Mapp would rise well before this point, since she was known to favour the early morning as her ‘thinking time’, when she would sit dreamily in the window of the garden room at Mallards with a finger resting across her chin and a faraway expression on her face, surely too dreamily for anyone to think that she might be observing the manner and time of her neighbours’ houses coming to life.

  This morning the famous Tilling sunshine beat persistently against a bedroom window upon which Miss Mapp’s glassily unseeing gaze had been resting for a good hour or so, and filtered into the room through the cracks in the shutters, casting a ladder of light and shade on the countenance of a middle-aged man lying in bed and becoming slowly and somewhat reluctantly acquainted with the happy morn.

  Major Benjamin Flint, late of His Majesty’s Indian Army, was apt to be in poor spirits first thing in the morning, and could frequently be heard berating his servant should his kippers be cold or his porridge lumpy. On such occasions he would confide to his friends that he was ‘not quite the thing’ that morning, and would hint darkly at recurrent and mysterious diseases of tropical origin. His friends would naturally commiserate most sympathetically with an officer who had been forced to do such violence to his long-term health in the service of King and country. Yet as soon as he moved on they would conjecture amongst themselves that the good major’s ailment probably had more to do with prolonged exposure to Bombay gin than to the city of the same name.

  Major Benjy, as he was known to his friends, lay in that halfway state between sleep and wakefulness, when one is fully conscious only of a headache and trying to come to terms with the enormity of getting out of bed, while being somewhat preoccupied with thoughts of something one has forgotten and really should have remembered. With a heartfelt groan he swung two hairy legs out of bed, felt for his slippers, and then opened the shutters. This proved to be something of a mistake as the pure Tilling sunlight struck him squarely in the face and he uttered a little cry and tottered backwards, sitting down again heavily on the bed. From her vantage point Miss Mapp heard the cry and stored it away tidily in that part of her mind which was reserved for the fermenting of solicitous enquiries after an individual’s well-being which could be delivered quizzically, though in a kind, neighbourly fashion, during the morning’s shopping.

  Major Benjy’s second attempt at embracing the day was rather more successful than the first and some moments later found him sitting at the breakfast table, which Sarah, his servant, seemed quite inexplicably to have neglected to lay that morning, and staring fixedly at his newspaper. Fixed though his gaze might be, his nostrils twitched, at first with puzzlement and then with mounting rage. Where his olfactory receptors might reasonably have expected to encounter the aroma of toast, kippers, bacon or coffee, they met none. The conclusion was inescapable: his breakfast was not ready, not even in the course of preparation, and so his brave attempt at coming downstairs without even the benefit of aspirin or bicarbonate of soda had been in vain. He drew an ample breath and shouted ‘Quai-Hai!’ at the top of his voice, though he knew it was likely to hurt. It did.

  Framed in the window of her garden room, Miss Mapp allowed a knowing smile to flit briefly across her face. At much the same time the Major, still attempting to focus on his newspaper, happened to open it at the page of classified advertisements and in that moment there came upon him the awful realisation of what it was that he had forgotten but really ought to have remembered. Sarah, having given notice a month previously when he had occasion to exchange sharp words with her about his kippers, had left the day before, and his increasingly desperate efforts in recent days to find a replacement through the columns of the Tilling Gazette had proved fruitless. There was no Sarah to make his bed or tidy his room. There was no Sarah patiently to retrieve his golf clubs from the various corners into which he flung them after losing half a crown on the eighteenth green to the Padre. Worse still, infinitely worse, there was no Sarah to cook his breakfast. He gave a hollow groan, dropped the newspaper on to the bare table and went dejectedly in search of Alka-Seltzer.

  Miss Mapp, by contrast, decided that she had probably been seen at her thoughtful best for quite long enough for one day, and busied herself with her preparations for her daily shopping trip. Shopping for oneself may be thought of as something of an eccentricity when one has a servant, but to refer to Tilling’s morning passeggiata as ‘shopping’ would be akin to describing Wagner’s Ring cycle as light musical entertainment. First it was an opportunity to keep oneself abreast of Tilling developments, and here there was a whole ritual of exchanges to be observed, starting with the hopeful query ‘Any news?’, not forgetting the ejaculatory ‘No!’ of feigned disbelief and secret delight at each new disclosure. For the ‘news’ referred to was not of the variety that could be found in any newspaper, except perhaps occasionally in the Tilling Gazette. There was a world beyond Tilling to be sure, but no true Tillingite deigned to acknowledge it. Their world was bounded by the stone walls of the original cinque port. Even Tilling new town could be regarded as terra incognita.

  Second, it was an opportunity to display a new outfit, and never more so than now, at what could almost credibly be called the start of the summer season. Shopping in the crude sense in which that word was used outside Tilling society, the actual purchase of comestibles, came a long way third. Miss Mapp would typically content herself with one or two choice items which would not weigh down her basket too heavily while she was standing talking, and leave the real business of stocking the house to her servant, Withers. Fridays were the only exception to this rule. On the fifth day God had created the great creatures of the sea and winged birds, but for Miss Mapp it was when she sallied forth, her weekly books of account in her basket, to indulge in numerous highly enjoyable arguments with the local tradesmen.

  Happily this was not a Friday and so she would be able to devote herself entirely to the welfare of her fellow Tillingites. She donned hat and gloves in front of the hall mirror and stepped into West Street with her usual rolling gait. The first house on the lef
t was that of the Major, standing opposite what had until quite recently been the home of the late Captain Puffin. It had been the scene of scandal when the Major and the Captain were understood to have fought a duel over the matter of her womanly affections, and she was careful to deny the story afresh every time there seemed any danger of the incident being forgotten.

  Her shortest path to Twistevant’s, the greengrocer, lay undeniably to the right, but she hesitated and turned left instead, to knock a trifle imperiously at the Major’s front door. There was what sounded suspiciously like some swearing from the innermost depths, and then the door was opened abruptly by the Major himself with a peremptory ‘Yes?’. It was unfortunate that a combination of a bad hangover and no breakfast should have made the Major forgetful. It was doubly unfortunate that what he should have forgotten were his trousers.

  Miss Mapp had always felt herself equal to any social dilemma that might befall her, but even her resolute personality was momentarily nonplussed by the irrefutable fact that she, an unmarried woman of unimpeachable virtue, could be seen standing in broad daylight in the streets of Tilling talking to an unmarried man dressed impeccably in collar and tie above the waist, but below it simply in a pair of long woollen underpants of indeterminate hue. She quelled the instinctive shriek that rose unbidden in her maidenly throat, and decided that by far the kindest thing would be simply to ignore these circumstances.

  ‘Good morning, Major,’ she cooed, her eyes fixed determinedly on his face. ‘I felt I should just see if everything was all right, as I thought I heard you cry out a little earlier. I wondered if perhaps you had cut yourself shaving?’

  The Major’s realisation that he was not wearing any trousers had come a second or two after Miss Mapp’s, and roused in him a perturbation that was second only to her own. What on earth could he do? To slam the door in her face was an option, but could be quickly dismissed on the grounds of how rude it would look. To cower behind it with his head poking around the edge was surely unmanly. His eyes met her own fixed and somewhat desperate gaze and he decided in an instant to take his lead from her and pretend that nothing was amiss.

  ‘Miss Elizabeth,’ he said, and then he said ‘Ah!’ to give himself time to think. He said ‘Ah!’ a lot and found that provided he said it in various different tones of voice it answered pretty well for many situations. For example, if someone said something you did not understand, but which sounded rather clever, then saying ‘Ah!’ in the right way could convey the message ‘Yes, I understand and agree with everything you’re saying, although perhaps there are a few subtle nuances you may not fully have considered’, which was infinitely preferable to standing there with a blank expression on your face. This tactic was frequently of great assistance during conversations with Mr Wyse, who was apt to mention someone with an Italian-sounding name and then bow significantly. If you said, ‘By Jove, yes, that man could paint,’ he usually turned out to be an opera singer and Mr Wyse would courteously try to mask his contempt for your intellectual failings, and almost succeed; could make a man feel jolly small, that.

  He realised that he had used up most of the pause which an ‘Ah!’ could properly be said to command, and toyed with saying it again. This could be dangerous, as to say ‘Ah!’ once and significantly could be seen as the sign of a deeply thoughtful man who is pondering some complex abstract concept, whereas to say it twice could be seen as the sign of a deeply thoughtless man who has just realised that he is standing at his open front door with no trousers on. With difficulty, he continued the surreal conversation.

  ‘No, no, quite well, thank you, dear lady,’ he assured her. ‘Perhaps it was a gull you heard? They are particularly noisy at this time of year, I find. Something to do with nesting, perhaps?’

  ‘Ah yes, that must have been it. A gull, of course.’

  Usually Miss Mapp would not have let her victim off so lightly, and would have remained on the doorstep, twisting the knife for as long as possible with tender enquiries after the Major’s servant problem and state of health, but on this occasion she was understandably anxious to bring the interview to a close as quickly as possible. However, just as she started to bid the Major a smiling farewell, disaster struck. First the fishmonger’s boy rode past on his bicycle and made a most inappropriate remark. This Miss Mapp could at least pretend not to hear, but she had no such option with the second cruel shaft which fate now fired in her direction. Immediately behind the first cyclist rode another, and who should it turn out to be but Quaint Irene, who rang her bell vigorously and hooted ‘What-ho, Benjy! Bit eager today, aren’t you?’ as she disappeared round the corner.

  Miss Mapp and Major Benjy looked at each other for a moment in horrified silence, and then with a muttered parting they went their separate ways, she to stomp in silent fury to Twistevant’s, and he to sink in a pale and trembling heap on to a chair in his hallway. Major Flint had encountered various tricky situations during his army career, although not nearly as many as appeared with monotonous regularity in his recollections of military life, but nothing could compare to the hopeless, aching dread which he now felt at the prospect of having to open his front door (after having attired himself correctly, of course) and face his friends and neighbours. At times of extreme distress or uncertainty, particularly if coupled with mild inebriation, he was apt to draw himself to attention and salute, but even the thought of this did little to lift his depression on this occasion.

  His morning had started badly. He was in possession of neither servant nor breakfast. He owed money to his wine merchant and, more dashingly yet more dangerously, to a bookmaker in Hastings. He had thought things could hardly get worse, and yet, clad in a pair of somewhat dingy combinations, he had just opened the door to the most redoubtable defender of Tilling society’s respectability. He buried his head in his hands as he realised that he must shortly leave his house and face that very Tilling society who would by now, since news travelled fast among the basket-carrying classes, doubtless be in full possession of the facts.

  In consequence it was some time before he put in an appearance on the streets of Tilling, shopping basket in hand as he walked stiffly in search of provisions. Mercifully Irene Coles was nowhere to be seen. Diva Plaistow was, however, walking towards him on the same side of the road and short of crossing the road to avoid her, which was plainly unthinkable, some effort at conversation was going to have to be made.

  ‘Mrs Plaistow, good morning.’ He raised his hat. For once, ‘Any news?’ did not seem an appropriate greeting. There was always the chance, he assured himself hopefully, that the ‘news’ of which he was himself the subject may not yet have leaked out. He could see instantly that such hopes were in vain. Diva Plaistow, who usually issued forth volubly yet telegraphically, was evidently in difficulties. Her larynx was going up and down with little gulping noises, but no recognisable words were emerging.

  ‘Quite well, I trust?’ enquired the Major.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ uttered Diva at last, and then instantly decided to take refuge in flight. ‘Would love to ... can’t stay ... things to do,’ she trailed behind her as she headed back in the direction from which she had come. The Major followed at a discreet distance. Damn! Here was Miss Mapp coming towards him and that was the very last thing he wanted at this precise moment, but there was nothing for it but to raise his hat again and say ‘Miss Elizabeth’ with as normal a countenance as he could manage.

  Miss Mapp fixed a beatific smile upon him. She had decided to continue with her strategy of pretending that nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened. Unfortunately the Major himself now proceeded rather clumsily to forestall this.

  ‘I feel I must apologise, dear lady, for the unfortunate incident just now. I hope you will understand that ...’ he searched for words, and decided upon ‘a combination of circumstances’. Unfortunately the gear wheels in his rather stressed mind slipped and crashed, and what actually came out was ‘a circumstance of combinations’. Miss Mapp blanched visibly. ‘Combinations’ was the one word which had been going round in her head for some time, and the one which she had hoped never to hear uttered again.