Fragments of a Novel discovered in Mother Trout's Bookcase
The Lion, the Witch, and the Garden Room Cupboard
by C.S. Benson
Chapter One: Lucia Looks in a Cupboard
It was a dismal rainy day on the afternoon that Lucia arrived fifteen minutes early for Miss Mapp's bridge party. As she had expected (and counted upon), Withers had conducted her to the Garden Room and then had departed to summon her mistress. A scanty tea was laid and the card tables were ready. Lucia had not arrived early at the party for the pleasure of a quiet chat with her hostess. Lucia had had quite enough of Miss Mapp's undiluted company on the Gallagher Bank and had no desire for piccolo pettegollezo with her. She had another purpose in arriving so early.
On her return from her pelagic travels with Miss Mapp, Lucia had eagerly taken up her classical studies. She had become fascinated with scientific method, thinking how useful it would be in her other endeavors and she determined to apply the theories of the Masters to some puzzle of her own. Casting about for a likely topic of research, Lucia had settled on the elusive recipe for Red Currant Fool. She was satisfied that this particular choice of topic was not motivated by a desire for revenge or reprisal. "No", thought Lucia, unconsciously striking a classical pose, "I seek knowledge -- knowledge that will be a benefit to Mankind, or at least to Tilling. Poor dear Susan has been worrying herself sick over that recipe and it will set her mind at ease."
Following in the footsteps of Aristotle, Lucia began by observing the Fool at Elizabeth's next bridge party. She had tasted it carefully and deeply and repeatedly. She had examined it most minutely and noted the characteristics of its bubbling fluidity and its peculiar tint. She had even sniffed it as a wine taster would sniff the latest vintage of Barolo. Her observations had gotten her precisely -- nowhere. As Aristotle had discovered (or was he spared that bitter knowledge?), Lucia's method of observation did not reveal the scientific truth. She still could not be entirely sure of the exact ingredients of Miss Mapp's Red Currant Fool.
It was with some reluctance that Lucia moved beyond the Greek philosophers to find assistance in the 17th century. Newton's Hypothetico-Deductive Method sounded most promising and productive. And it had an element of action that appealed to Lucia's energetic nature. Lucia had made her observations and now she made a hypothesis. All that remained was to verify it. To do this, Lucia proposed to scientifically examine Grandmama Mapp's cookbook. There was no question about Lucia's stealing the recipe. She did not at all intend to steal it. But she felt she owed it to modern science and to Tilling to test her hypothesis regarding Red Currant Fool. Anyone with a decent classical education would understand that.
A fruitful discussion with Diva Plaistow had revealed the location of Grandmama Mapp's cookbook. Diva had paid a previous visit to the hidden cupboard in Miss Mapp's garden room and there, shoved in between tins of corned beef and bottles of Bovril, Diva had seen the book, foxed and tattered. Lucia felt assured that, given the chance to quickly peruse the cookbook, she would be able to bring her scientific research to a close -- and, purely as an aside, deliver a nasty one to Elizabeth when she spied a jug of the crimson beverage at Lucia's next bridge party
Fifteen minutes would surely suffice for her to memorize the recipe. No need for awkward scribblings on a scrap of paper. Lucia prided herself on her excellent memory. The bridge table had been removed from in front of the false bookcase, just as on the day when Diva made her explorations. She glided smoothly to the cupboard. With a steady hand, she found the catch; she pressed it; she pulled open the door and immediately stepped into the cupboard, leaving the door ajar, of course, because she knew it is very foolish to shut oneself into any cupboard. Looking about her, she saw shelf after shelf, crowded with eatables. There were tins of corned beef and tongue. There were sacks of flour and tubes of Bath Oliver biscuits and bottles of Bovril. Wouldn't Diva be aghast when she heard how the Padre's needy parishioners had never received even one packet of dried milk! There was, however, no cookbook in sight.
Sacks of flour pressed against her as she scriggled her way into the narrow passageway between the shelves. Who knew to what depth the cupboard extended? Perhaps the cookbook would be on one of the shelves against the back wall. It was quite dark in the cupboard and Lucia kept her arms stretched out in front of her so as not to bump her face into the back of the cupboard. She took a step further in -- then two or three steps -- always expecting to feel woodwork against the tips of her fingers. But she could not feel it.
"This must be a simply enormous cupboard!", thought Lucia, going still further in and pushing against the rough burlap of a huge bag of rice to make room. How typical of Diva to give her no idea of the incredible extent of this illicit pantry. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. "Dried apricots?", she wondered. "No, surely they would not crunch, but rather stick to the bottoms of my shoes". She stooped down to feel with her hand. But instead of feeling the smooth wood floor of the cupboard, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. "This is very strano", she said.
Next moment she found that she was not pressing against prickly bags of rice and flour, but against something hard and rough. Lucia called all of her Aristotelean powers of observation into play. "Why, it's just like the branches of trees!" she exclaimed. And then she saw that she was standing in the middle of a wood, with snow under her feet and falling softly around her.
Lucia felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well. She looked back over her shoulder, and there between the trees, she could still see the open door of the cupboard and a glimpse of the garden room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, left the door ajar, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to shut oneself up in a cupboard). "Well, that's alright then. I can always get back if anything goes wrong", thought Lucia. She began to walk forward through the wood, toward a tall post standing in a clearing. When she reached it, she saw that it looked for all the world like a very large Riding Whip stuck into the ground. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a Riding Whip standing in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard the pitter patter of feet coming toward her. And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from among the trees.
He was taller than Lucia and he carried over his head an umbrella, white with snow. He was shaped like a man, but instead of feet, he had the neatest little hooves that shone black like patent leather. He also had a tail which he had draped over his arm to keep it from trailing in the snow. He wore a little fur-trimmed cape about his shoulders. He had a strange, but pleasant face with a short pointed beard and waving auburn hair, and out of his hair there stuck two pretty horns, one on each side of his forehead. One of his hands, as I said, held the umbrella, with his tail over his arm. On his other arm, he carried a large market basket, full of paper-wrapped parcels. He was a Faun. And when he saw Lucia, he gave such a start of surprise that he dropped his basket and parcels flew everywhere. "Oh, how tarsome! Now they shall be damp", exclaimed the Faun.
Chapter Two: What Lucia Found There
"Good afternoon", said Lucia, never at a loss in a social situation. The Faun made her a little bow.
"Good afternoon, good afternoon ", said the Faun and he bent to pick up his parcels. "Goodness me, what a fright you gave me, my dear. Now who can you be? I don't think we've met" and he stepped up gracefully to shake hands.
"My name is Mrs. Emmeline Lucas. You may call me Lucia."
"And my name is Mr. Georgius," replied the Faun. "Do come for tea and we can have ickle chat and you can tell me all about yourself and how you came to be here."
"With pleasure", replied Lucia. Georgius offered to share his umbrella and they stepped off into the wood together.
Presently they arrived at a snug little cave. It had a nice carpet on the floor, two comfortable armchairs, and a multitude of occasional tables. On one was a hoop of embroidery and a basket filled to overflowing with colored strands of wool. On another table was a glass-fronted cabinet filled with bibelots -- a cunningly carved acorn pillbox, a polished stag horn pipe, and a very pretty piece of amethyst. The walls were covered with watercolors. Lucia recognized one of the Riding Whip that stood in the clearing.
Mr. Georgius quickly set about making tea. He put the kettle on the fire and made the toast and set out a plate of cakes. When they were quite comfortable, he asked, "Now do tell me, my dear, any news?"
"Well," said Lucia, "I don't want to give out any information prematurely, but I am engaged in some rather important scientific research. I am seeking the true ingredients for a recipe called Red Currant Fool and I had hoped to find it in the Grandmama Mapp's Cookbook in the cupboard. I had been following an Aristotelean Model of inquiry, but have recently been forced to take up Newton's methods." Lucia imparted all of this in a serious tone of scholarly profundity.
"Oh, I see", said Mr. Georgius bemusedly.
"And I must say that I am ickle vexed that I did not find the Cookbook in the cupboard. You wouldn't happen to have any Cookbooks of that description here?"
"Oh no, my dear," replied Mr. Georgius. "The only one here who has any books would be the Witch. I don't suppose you'd want to go see her?"
"A Witch? Who is this witch?," asked Lucia.
"The Witch!", exclaimed Mr. Georgius with a little shudder. "Why, it's she who has got all Tilling under her heel. It's she who makes it always winter and never Boxing Day; think of that!"
"How dreadful for you, my dear", cried Lucia. "It appears that I must pay a call to your Witch. But as it's late, I shall go home now."
Mr. Georgius escorted Lucia back through the woods and past the Riding Whip.
"Ah yes, I can see my way from here", said Lucia. "Thank you so much for tea. Shall we meet again tomorrow? Quarter past three?".
"Yes, that would be lovely. Au reservoir!", said the Faun.
"Arrive derci", said Lucia and she tripped lightly across the snow toward the far-off patch of daylight. And presently, instead of rough branches brushing past her, she felt flour sacking and the burlap of rice bags, and all at once she found herself popping out of the cupboard into the garden room from which the whole adventure had started. She shut the cupboard door tightly behind her and looked around, panting for breath. It was still raining outside and she could hear the sound of footsteps coming up the garden room stairs.
"I'm here," she cried. "I'm here. I've ritornata, I'm all right".
Chapter Three: Diva and the Cupboard
The door of the garden room opened and Withers led in Diva, Susan Wyse, and Irene Coles.
"I'm here," repeated Lucia. "I've ritornata."
"But, darling, what are you talking about?", asked Irene as she came up to kiss Lucia.
"Why," cried Lucia in amazement. "Haven't you all been wondering where I was?"
"Been hiding? Secret garden? Poor Lucia. No one noticed", said Diva.
"But I've been away for hours, my dears, and I've made the most incredible scientific discovery! I must ring up the Society for Psychical Research. They will want to know of my discovery immediately. There is certainly something paranormal about Elizabeth's cupboard!," insisted Lucia.
The others all stared at one another. "Batty!", said Diva, tapping her head. Lucia drew herself up with stiff dignity.
Irene gave a cry of dismay and leapt across the room to embrace Lucia. "Angel, don't! What ever do you mean?", she asked.
"Exactly what I said," said Lucia coldly. "I came to LibLib's party a little early and I just happened to look into the hidden cupboard", she said, blithely skipping over several important steps in her carefully outlined Hypothetico-Deductive experiment model. "It appears that Elizabeth's cupboard is a Portal to Another World! Like Drake and Magellan, I cast aside fear and decided to explore."
Lucia's face had assumed a far-away expression, as though she were seeing new horizons. "I entered a New World, perhaps a parallel universe...or perhaps it was an Out-of-Body Experience. They call that an OBE, you know. Anyway, I spent the entire afternoon there, exploring and meeting some of the people there and having tea."
"But surely, you must be confused, " said Susan. "We've only just arrived for bridge ourselves and Withers said she had brought you over not five minutes ago."
"Darling!," said Irene, as she held Lucia's hand. "You're just making up a lovely story to amuse us, aren't you? You are so clever and wonderful and imaginative!"
"No, I'm not, dear Irene", Lucia replied, withdrawing her hand. "I tell you: I have been right out of this world and I must make my discovery known to the proper authorities. Come and look, if you disbelieve me."
The others did not know what to think, but Lucia was gabbling so excitedly that they all went over to the cupboard. Lucia flung open the door of the cupboard and cried, "Ecco! Go in and see for yourselves."
"But Lucia dear, it's only Elizabeth's hidden cupboard," said Susan.
"Just look at all the good things!," cried Diva. "Said she was giving it all to the Padre. Liar."
Everyone looked in and Diva pushed aside the bag of flour and some of the tins, and they all saw -- Lucia herself saw-- a perfectly ordinary, though very full, cupboard. There was no wood, no snow, only the back of the cupboard. Irene went in and rapped her knuckles on it to make sure it was solid.
"A jolly good tale, Lucia mia", Irene said as she closed the door. The two other ladies laughed reassuringly. Lucia grew pale with vexation and was about to retort when at that moment, the garden room door opened again and the rest of the party came in.
~~~~~~~
For the next few days Lucia was as miserable as her healthy temperament would allow her to be. She could have made it up with Diva and Irene and Susan quite easily if only she could have laughed a silvery peal and said it was all ickle scherzo. But Lucia knew she was in the right and she could not bring herself to do such a thing. The others thought she was pulling a stunt. At least Diva thought she was trying to pull a stunt, though like Mrs. Wyse, she was at a loss as to what purpose such a stunt could serve. Irene, who couldn't understand it at all, was quite as miserable as Lucia. Lucia had cut her on the High Street and Irene had retreated to Taormina in tears.
Mrs. Wyse and Irene would have preferred to let the matter drop, but Diva couldn't help herself getting in a dig here and there. Diva was still smarting from some recent advice of Lucia's about calisthenics and slimming and she took the opportunity to vent some of her bitterness. "Tell me more about OBE, Lucia. Is it anything like Susan's MBE?", she asked in a jocular tone one morning outside of Twistevant's.
The following week, Miss Mapp issued invitations to another bridge party. As it happened, Diva was the first to arrive and found herself alone in the garden room. "Wonder if Elizabeth's sent on all those good things", she thought as she pressed the catch. She opened the door. There were the tins of tongue, still upon the shelf, and the bag of flour, and the faint smell of apricots, and darkness, and silence.
Diva stepped into the cupboard and pushed aside a large tinned tongue. She expected to see the back of the cupboard and was very surprised when she did not. She decided to go back to the garden room and turned around to find the door, but she could not find that either. Diva didn't like this at all and began groping wildly in every direction. "Door must have swung shut", she muttered and suddenly she found herself standing in a wood. There was crisp, dry snow under her feet and the sky above her was a wintery pale blue.
Diva looked about her and decided she didn't much like this place, and had almost made up her mind to go home, when she heard, very far off in the woods, the sound of a dinner bell. She listened and the sound came nearer and nearer and presently there swept into sight a sturdy kitchen table turned upon its back with its legs in the air and drawn, like a sledge, by eight pigs.
The pigs were large, about the size of Shetland ponies, and they were of varied hues: yellow, orange, red, pink, violet, blue, green, and chartreuse. Their harness was made of strips of aged tiger skin that threw off a cloud of fur as the pigs cantered. On the table, driving the pigs (who did not wish to be druv), sat a fat dwarf with large mustaches. He was dressed in tiger skin and he wore a white woolen cap that was too small for his bald head. But behind him, on a much higher seat in the middle of the table sat a very different sort of person -- a large lady, who smiled widely, showing all of her large, white teeth. Her face was very red. She wore a purple gown liberally sprinkled with pink roses. The color of the roses matched the color of the lady's gums in a most disconcerting way.
The kitchen table was a fine sight as it came sweeping toward Diva with the dinner bell swinging and the fur flying and the dwarf cracking his riding whip and shouting "Qui Hai!" and the snow flying up on each side of it.
"Arretez!", cried the Lady, and the dwarf pulled the pigs up so sharp that they sat down.
"And who, pray, are you?", said the lady, staring hard at Diva.
"Name's Diva. Diva Plaistow.", said Diva.
The lady smiled harder. "Is that, sweet one, how you address a queen?", she asked.
"Beg pardon, Majesty. Didn't know", said Diva.
"Not know the Queen of Tilling?", cried she. "Ho! You shall know us better hereafter. From whence have you come?"
"Please, Majesty," said Diva, a little uncomfortably. "Don't know what you mean by that comment. Came from a bridge party -- at least that's where I was. Somewhere else now."
Chapter Four: Chocolate Nougat
"From a Bridge Party?", mused the Queen and she thought for a moment.
"My poor dear one, " she said in quite a different voice, "how cold you look! Come and sit with me here on the table and we will chat."
Diva did not much like this arrangement but she thought it better to fall in with this plan.
"Perhaps some nice hot tea to drink?" suggested the Queen. "And something to eat? What do you like best to eat?"
"Chocolate Nougat, please, your... er...Majesty", said Diva.
The Queen held out her hand and said "Peep Bo!" and there instantly appeared in her plump hand a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, upon examination, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Chocolate Nougats. Each piece was plump and sweet and ever so chewy and Diva had never tasted anything more delicious. She felt quite warm now and very comfortable.
While she was eating, the Queen kept asking her questions. At first Diva tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one's mouth full, but soon she forgot about this and thought only of trying to gobble down as many Chocolate Nougats as she could, and the more she ate, the more she wanted to eat, and she never asked herself why the Queen should be so inquisitive. She got Diva to tell her that she had never been married (this would have shocked most Tillingites), that she had trouble with certain of her back molars, that she loathed playing Auction bridge, that one of her friends had already been to this country within the cupboard and met a Faun there. She seemed especially interested in Lucia's Red Currant Fool research.
At last the Chocolate Nougats were all finished and Diva was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing the Queen would offer her some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what she was thinking; for she knew, though Diva did not, that these were enchanted nougats and that anyone who had once tasted them would want more and more, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating them till they killed themselves. But the Queen did not offer her any more. Instead she said,
"And now, sweet one, we must leave you to return to your own world. Do, do come again and bring your friends with you when you come. I will have more Chocolate Nougats waiting for you ."
The narrative breaks off abruptly at this point as a large number of pages appear to have been removed.
The narrative resumes below:
Chapter Twelve: In the Witch's House
Lucia stepped silently into the room. It was deserted, but on a desk in the corner of the room lay a large foxed and tattered book.
"Successo!", whispered Lucia triumphantly and she crossed the room in an instant. She laid her hand on the book; her fingers tingled when she touched it as if it were full of electricity. She opened it.
There was no title page or title; the recipes began straight away, and at first they were very ordinary recipes. There were recipes for tomato salad and marrow preserves. But then the recipes became more unusual. There was a recipe for Preserving High Colour in the Cheeks, another for Preserving Sweetness of Expression, Whilst Stuffed with Bitterness and Rage. There were instructions for How to Properly Cut Your Friends Dead in the Street (serve iced), How to Exact Payment from Card Partners, (highly spiced), How to Avoid Payment to Tradespeople.
"Why, these are rather more like spells than recipes," thought Lucia.
And there, under the heading, How to Win at Bridge, was the recipe for Red Currant Fool. The description began: "Firstly, render your opponents dull-witted by generous application of Red Currant Fool (recipe follows)...."
Lucia read the recipe through, her gimlet eyes flicking quickly down the lines. As she read, her eyes at first widened and then narrowed. "I see", she said when she had done. Then Lucia firmly closed Grandmama Mapp's cookbook. She look in a long, slow breath through her nose. "Well", she said quietly to herself. "My hypothesis was wrong. Very wrong. But I am not disappointed. I see now that there are larger matters to consider."
Lucia turned to leave the room and there, standing in the doorway, smiling widely, was the Witch!
Here ends the narrative. All other pages are sadly missing.
