Major Benjy by Guy Fraser-Sampson

Author:Guy Fraser-Sampson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908739704
Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

Chapter 7

The next day being Sunday, Lucy was able to waylay Diva on her way to church. This plan necessitated a change from her normal habits, since she and Irene were irregular worshippers at best, but the importance of her mission overcame the urge to lounge in bed with a pot of tea and the weekend papers, which is how they usually passed a Sunday morning until Irene became bored and started drawing irreverent cartoons of both national politicians and local residents in the newspaper margins, sometimes hopelessly commingled in such a way that a particularly pugnacious Winston Churchill was being beaten into submission with an umbrella by a hag-like Miss Mapp.

So it was that Lucy was hovering nervously on the corner of the High Street outside the King’s Arms as Diva opened her front door and stepped out. To add to Lucy’s burden of guilt still further she smiled brightly and said, ‘Hello, Lucy, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help yesterday. Here’s the half a crown, by the way.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Lucy awkwardly, slipping the coin into her jacket pocket. ‘I say, Diva, something awful happened. Major Benjy was there when the show opened as well, and I’m rather afraid he saw your cake.’

‘Well, that’s all right, dear,’ said Diva soothingly, ‘since you bought it and threw it away nobody will ever cut into it, so there’s no harm done, is there?’

‘Decent of you to take it that way, Diva,’ said Lucy, much relieved. ‘I must say that it was jolly brave of you to put it in at all. If it had been me, I wouldn’t have wanted anyone seeing it.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it looked as bad as all that, did it?’ asked Diva vaguely. ‘Do excuse me, Lucy, there’s Evie Bartlett, and I haven’t had a chance to offer my congratulations.’

Diva hurried across the road to greet the conquering heroine of the Tilling baking competition. Evie, who was on her own as the Padre was already robing himself in the vestry, modestly accepted the praise that was due to her.

Conversation turned to their planned activities for the rest of the day.

‘I say!’ squeaked Evie suddenly. ‘One of Kenneth’s old seminary friends is coming in his motor car to take us into Brighton this afternoon. Why don’t you come with us? He’s a single gentleman, and I’m sure there will be room in the car.’

Diva was not one to turn down an afternoon in Brighton and probably, though she was not quite sure, a single gentleman either. Whatever the case, it sounded an inviting prospect and she and Evie walked off to church together, chattering happily. Diva felt a momentary twinge of embarrassment as she passed the Wyses getting out of their Rolls Royce, but Mr Wyse simply raised his hat and said ‘Charmed, ladies,’ with a very pleasant smile.

Miss Mapp was walking along some distance behind Diva, and the Wyses had exited the car and were falling in on the pavement when she arrived.

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