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Miss Mapp

by E. F. Benson · English · Gutenberg #25919 · 503,325 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Miss Mapp

Author: E. F. Benson


        
Release date: June 28, 2008 [eBook #25919]
                Most recently updated: December 24, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25919

Credits: Produced by Malcolm Farmer, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online
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        file was produced from images generously made available
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS MAPP ***




Produced by Malcolm Farmer, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)









  _MISS MAPP_

  _By E. F. Benson, Author of "Queen Lucia." "Dodo Wonders." &c._


  _McCLELLAND & STEWART, LTD.,
  TORONTO_




PREFACE


I lingered at the window of the garden-room from which Miss Mapp so
often and so ominously looked forth. To the left was the front of her
house, straight ahead the steep cobbled way, with a glimpse of the High
Street at the end, to the right the crooked chimney and the church.

The street was populous with passengers, but search as I might, I could
see none who ever so remotely resembled the objects of her vigilance.

E. F. BENSON.

Lamb House, Rye.


_Printed in Great Britain._




CHAPTER I


Miss Elizabeth Mapp might have been forty, and she had taken advantage
of this opportunity by being just a year or two older. Her face was of
high vivid colour and was corrugated by chronic rage and curiosity; but
these vivifying emotions had preserved to her an astonishing activity of
mind and body, which fully accounted for the comparative adolescence
with which she would have been credited anywhere except in the charming
little town which she had inhabited so long. Anger and the gravest
suspicions about everybody had kept her young and on the boil.

She sat, on this hot July morning, like a large bird of prey at the very
convenient window of her garden-room, the ample bow of which formed a
strategical point of high value. This garden-room, solid and spacious,
was built at right angles to the front of her house, and looked straight
down the very interesting street which debouched at its lower end into
the High Street of Tilling. Exactly opposite her front door the road
turned sharply, so that as she looked out from this projecting window,
her own house was at right angles on her left, the street in question
plunged steeply downwards in front of her, and to her right she
commanded an uninterrupted view of its further course which terminated
in the disused graveyard surrounding the big Norman church. Anything of
interest about the church, however, could be gleaned from a guide-book,
and Miss Mapp did not occupy herself much with such coldly venerable
topics. Far more to her mind was the fact that between the church and
her strategic window was the cottage in which her gardener lived, and
she could thus see, when not otherwise engaged, whether he went home
before twelve, or failed to get back to her garden again by one, for he
had to cross the street in front of her very eyes. Similarly she could
observe whether any of his abandoned family ever came out from her
garden door weighted with suspicious baskets, which might contain
smuggled vegetables. Only yesterday morning she had hurried forth with a
dangerous smile to intercept a laden urchin, with inquiries as to what
was in "that nice basket." On that occasion that nice basket had proved
to contain a strawberry net which was being sent for repair to the
gardener's wife; so there was nothing more to be done except verify its
return. This she did from a side window of the garden-room which
commanded the strawberry beds; she could sit quite close to that, for it
was screened by the large-leaved branches of a fig-tree and she could
spy unseen.

Otherwise this road to the right leading up to the church was of no
great importance (except on Sunday morning, when she could get a
practically complete list of those who attended Divine Service), for no
one of real interest lived in the humble dwellings which lined it. To
the left was the front of her own house at right angles to the strategic
window, and with regard to that a good many useful observations might
be, and were, made. She could, from behind a curtain negligently
half-drawn across the side of the window nearest the house, have an eye
on her housemaid at work, and notice if she leaned out of a window, or
made remarks to a friend passing in the street, or waved salutations
with a duster. Swift upon such discoveries, she would execute a flank
march across the few steps of garden and steal into the house,
noiselessly ascend the stairs, and catch the offender red-handed at this
public dalliance. But all such domestic espionage to right and left was
flavourless and insipid compared to the tremendous discoveries which
daily and hourly awaited the trained observer of the street that lay
directly in front of her window.

There was little that concerned the social movements of Tilling that
could not be proved, or at least reasonably conjectured, from Miss
Mapp's eyrie. Just below her house on the left stood Major Flint's
residence, of Georgian red brick like her own, and opposite was that of
Captain Puffin. They were both bachelors, though Major Flint was
generally supposed to have been the hero of some amazingly amorous
adventures in early life, and always turned the subject with great
abruptness when anything connected with duelling was mentioned. It was
not, therefore, unreasonable to infer that he had had experiences of a
bloody sort, and colour was added to this romantic conjecture by the
fact that in damp, rheumatic weather his left arm was very stiff, and he
had been known to say that his wound troubled him. What wound that was
no one exactly knew (it might have been anything from a vaccination mark
to a sabre-cut), for having said that his wound troubled him, he would
invariably add: "Pshaw! that's enough about an old campaigner"; and
though he might subsequently talk of nothing else except the old
campaigner, he drew a veil over his old campaigns. That he had seen
service in India was, indeed, probable by his referring to lunch as
tiffin, and calling to his parlour-maid with the ejaculation of
"Qui-hi." As her name was Sarah, this was clearly a reminiscence of days
in bungalows. When not in a rage, his manner to his own sex was bluff
and hearty; but whether in a rage or not, his manner to the fairies, or
lovely women, was gallant and pompous in the extreme. He certainly had a
lock of hair in a small gold specimen case on his watch-chain, and had
been seen to kiss it when, rather carelessly, he thought that he was
unobserved.

Miss Mapp's eye, as she took her seat in her window on this sunny July
morning, lingered for a moment on the Major's house, before she
proceeded to give a disgusted glance at the pictures on the back page of
her morning illustrated paper, which chiefly represented young women
dancing in rings in the surf, or lying on the beach in attitudes which
Miss Mapp would have scorned to adjust herself to. Neither the Major nor
Captain Puffin were very early risers, but it was about time that the
first signals of animation might be expected. Indeed, at this moment,
she quite distinctly heard that muffled roar which to her experienced
ear was easily interpreted to be "Qui-hi!"

"So the Major has just come down to breakfast," she mechanically
inferred, "and it's close on ten o'clock. Let me see: Tuesday, Thursday,
Saturday--Porridge morning."

Her penetrating glance shifted to the house exactly opposite to that in
which it was porridge morning, and even as she looked a hand was thrust
out of a small upper window and deposited a sponge on the sill. Then
from the inside the lower sash was thrust firmly down, so as to prevent
the sponge from blowing away and falling into the street. Captain
Puffin, it was therefore clear, was a little later than the Major that
morning. But he always shaved and brushed his teeth before his bath, so
that there was but a few minutes between them.

General manoeuvres in Tilling, the gradual burstings of fluttering life
from the chrysalis of the night, the emergence of the ladies of the town
with their wicker-baskets in their hands for housekeeping purchases, the
exodus of men to catch the 11.20 a.m. steam-tram out to the golf links,
and other first steps in the duties and diversions of the day, did not
get into full swing till half-past ten, and Miss Mapp had ample time to
skim the headlines of her paper and indulge in chaste meditations about
the occupants of these two houses, before she need really make herself
alert to miss nothing. Of the two, Major Flint, without doubt, was the
more attractive to the feminine sense; for years Miss Mapp had tried to
cajole him into marrying her, and had not nearly finished yet. With his
record of adventure, with the romantic reek of India (and camphor) in
the tiger-skin of the rugs that strewed his hall and surged like a
rising tide up the wall, with his haughty and gallant manner, with his
loud pshawings and sniffs at "nonsense and balderdash," his thumpings on
the table to emphasize an argument, with his wound and his prodigious
swipes at golf, his intolerance of any who believed in ghosts, microbes
or vegetarianism, there was something dashing and risky about him; you
felt that you were in the presence of some hot coal straight from the
furnace of creation. Captain Puffin, on the other hand, was of clay so
different that he could hardly be considered to be made of clay at all.
He was lame and short and meagre, with strings of peaceful beads and
Papuan aprons in his hall instead of wild tiger-skins, and had a jerky,
inattentive manner and a high pitched voice. Yet to Miss Mapp's mind
there was something behind his unimpressiveness that had a mysterious
quality--all the more so, because nothing of it appeared on the surface.
Nobody could call Major Flint, with his bawlings and his sniffings, the
least mysterious. He laid all his loud cards on the table, great hulking
kings and aces. But Miss Mapp felt far from sure that Captain Puffin did
not hold a joker which would some time come to light. The idea of being
Mrs. Puffin was not so attractive as the other, but she occasionally
gave it her remote consideration.

Yet there was mystery about them both, in spite of the fact that most of
their movements were so amply accounted for. As a rule, they played golf
together in the morning, reposed in the afternoon, as could easily be
verified by anyone standing on a still day in the road between their
houses and listening to the loud and rhythmical breathings that fanned
the tranquil air, certainly went out to tea-parties afterwards and
played bridge till dinner-time; or if no such entertainment was
proffered them, occupied arm-chairs at the country club, or laboriously
amassed a hundred at billiards. Though tea-parties were profuse, dining
out was very rare at Tilling; Patience or a jig-saw puzzle occupied the
hour or two that intervened between domestic supper and bed-time; but
again and again, Miss Mapp had seen lights burning in the sitting-room
of those two neighbours at an hour when such lights as were still in
evidence at Tilling were strictly confined to bedrooms, and should,
indeed, have been extinguished there. And only last week, being plucked
from slumber by some unaccountable indigestion (for which she blamed a
small green apple), she had seen at no less than twelve-thirty in the
morning the lights in Captain Puffin's sitting-room still shining
through the blind. This had excited her so much that at risk of toppling
into the street, she had craned her neck from her window, and observed a
similar illumination in the house of Major Flint. They were not together
then, for in that case any prudent householder (and God knew that they
both of them scraped and saved enough, or, if He didn't know, Miss Mapp
did) would have quenched his own lights, if he were talking to his
friend in his friend's house. The next night, the pangs of indigestion
having completely vanished, she set her alarum clock at the same
timeless hour, and had observed exactly the same phenomenon. Such late
hours, of course, amply accounted for these late breakfasts; but why, so
Miss Mapp pithily asked herself, why these late hours? Of course they
both kept summer-time, whereas most of Tilling utterly refused (except
when going by train) to alter their watches because Mr. Lloyd George
told them to; but even allowing for that ... then she perceived that
summer-time made it later than ever for its adherents, so that was no
excuse.

Miss Mapp had a mind that was incapable of believing the improbable, and
the current explanation of these late hours was very improbable, indeed.
Major Flint often told the world in general that he was revising his
diaries, and that the only uninterrupted time which he could find in
this pleasant whirl of life at Tilling was when he was alone in the
evening. Captain Puffin, on his part, confessed to a student's curiosity
about the ancient history of Tilling, with regard to which he was
preparing a monograph. He could talk, when permitted, by the hour about
the reclamation from the sea of the marsh land south of the town, and
about the old Roman road which was built on a raised causeway, of which
traces remained; but it argued, so thought Miss Mapp, an unprecedented
egoism on the part of Major Flint, and an equally unprecedented love of
antiquities on the part of Captain Puffin, that they should prosecute
their studies (with gas at the present price) till such hours. No; Miss
Mapp knew better than that, but she had not made up her mind exactly
what it was that she knew. She mentally rejected the idea that egoism
(even in these days of diaries and autobiographies) and antiquities
accounted for so much study, with the same healthy intolerance with
which a vigorous stomach rejects unwholesome food, and did not allow
herself to be insidiously poisoned by its retention. But as she took up
her light aluminium opera-glasses to make sure whether it was Isabel
Poppit or not who was now stepping with that high, prancing tread into
the stationer's in the High Street, she exclaimed to herself, for the
three hundred and sixty-fifth time after breakfast: "It's very
baffling"; for it was precisely a year to-day since she had first seen
those mysterious midnight squares of illuminated blind. "Baffling," in
fact, was a word that constantly made short appearances in Miss Mapp's
vocabulary, though its retention for a whole year over one subject was
unprecedented. But never yet had "baffled" sullied her wells of pure
undefiled English.

Movement had begun; Mrs. Plaistow, carrying her wicker basket, came
round the corner by the church, in the direction of Miss Mapp's window,
and as there was a temporary coolness between them (following violent
heat) with regard to some worsted of brilliant rose-madder hue, which a
forgetful draper had sold to Mrs. Plaistow, having definitely promised
it to Miss Mapp ... but Miss Mapp's large-mindedness scorned to recall
the sordid details of this paltry appropriation. The heat had quite
subsided, and Miss Mapp was, for her part, quite prepared to let the
coolness regain the normal temperature of cordiality the moment that
Mrs. Plaistow returned that worsted. Outwardly and publicly friendly
relationships had been resumed, and as the coolness had lasted six weeks
or so, it was probable that the worsted had already been incorporated
into the ornamental border of Mrs. Plaistow's jumper or winter scarf,
and a proper expression of regret would have to do instead. So the
nearer Mrs. Plaistow approached, the more invisible she became to Miss
Mapp's eye, and when she was within saluting distance had vanished
altogether. Simultaneously Miss Poppit came out of the stationer's in
the High Street.

Mrs. Plaistow turned the corner below Miss Mapp's window, and went
bobbing along down the steep hill. She walked with the motion of those
mechanical dolls sold in the street, which have three legs set as spokes
to a circle, so that their feet emerge from their dress with Dutch and
rigid regularity, and her figure had a certain squat rotundity that
suited her gait. She distinctly looked into Captain Puffin's dining-room
window as she passed, and with the misplaced juvenility so
characteristic of her waggled her plump little hand at it. At the corner
beyond Major Flint's house she hesitated a moment, and turned off down
the entry into the side street where Mr. Wyse lived. The dentist lived
there, too, and as Mr. Wyse was away on the continent of Europe, Mrs.
Plaistow was almost certain to be visiting the other. Rapidly Miss Mapp
remembered that at Mrs. Bartlett's bridge party yesterday Mrs. Plaistow
had selected soft chocolates for consumption instead of those stuffed
with nougat or almonds. That furnished additional evidence for the
dentist, for generally you could not get a nougat chocolate at all if
Godiva Plaistow had been in the room for more than a minute or two....
As she crossed the narrow cobbled roadway, with the grass growing
luxuriantly between the rounded pebbles, she stumbled and recovered
herself with a swift little forward run, and the circular feet twinkled
with the rapidity of those of a thrush scudding over the lawn.

By this time Isabel Poppit had advanced as far as the fish shop three
doors below the turning down which Mrs. Plaistow had vanished. Her
prancing progress paused there for a moment, and she waited with one
knee highly elevated, like a statue of a curveting horse, before she
finally decided to pass on. But she passed no further than the fruit
shop next door, and took the three steps that elevated it from the
street in a single prance, with her Roman nose high in the air.
Presently she emerged, but with no obvious rotundity like that of a
melon projecting from her basket, so that Miss Mapp could see exactly
what she had purchased, and went back to the fish shop again. Surely she
would not put fish on the top of fruit, and even as Miss Mapp's lucid
intelligence rejected this supposition, the true solution struck her.
"Ice," she said to herself, and, sure enough, projecting from the top of
Miss Poppit's basket when she came out was an angular peak, wrapped up
in paper already wet.

Miss Poppit came up the street and Miss Mapp put up her illustrated
paper again, with the revolting picture of the Brighton sea-nymphs
turned towards the window. Peeping out behind it, she observed that Miss
Poppit's basket was apparently oozing with bright venous blood, and
felt certain that she had bought red currants. That, coupled with the
ice, made conjecture complete. She had bought red currants slightly
damaged (or they would not have oozed so speedily), in order to make
that iced red-currant fool of which she had so freely partaken at Miss
Mapp's last bridge party. That was a very scurvy trick, for iced
red-currant fool was an invention of Miss Mapp's, who, when it was
praised, said that she inherited the recipe from her grandmother. But
Miss Poppit had evidently entered the lists against Grandmamma Mapp, and
she had as evidently guessed that quite inferior fruit--fruit that was
distinctly "off," was undetectable when severely iced. Miss Mapp could
only hope that the fruit in the basket now bobbing past her window was
so much "off" that it had begun to ferment. Fermented red-currant fool
was nasty to the taste, and, if persevered in, disastrous in its
effects. General unpopularity might be needed to teach Miss Poppit not
to trespass on Grandmamma Mapp's preserves.

Isabel Poppit lived with a flashy and condescending mother just round
the corner beyond the gardener's cottage, and opposite the west end of
the church. They were comparatively new inhabitants of Tilling, having
settled here only two or three years ago, and Tilling had not yet quite
ceased to regard them as rather suspicious characters. Suspicion
smouldered, though it blazed no longer. They were certainly rich, and
Miss Mapp suspected them of being profiteers. They kept a butler, of
whom they were both in considerable awe, who used almost to shrug his
shoulders when Mrs. Poppit gave him an order: they kept a motor-car to
which Mrs. Poppit was apt to allude more frequently than would have
been natural if she had always been accustomed to one, and they went to
Switzerland for a month every winter and to Scotland "for the
shooting-season," as Mrs. Poppit terribly remarked, every summer. This
all looked very black, and though Isabel conformed to the manners of
Tilling in doing household shopping every morning with her wicker
basket, and buying damaged fruit for fool, and in dressing in the
original home-made manner indicated by good breeding and narrow incomes,
Miss Mapp was sadly afraid that these habits were not the outcome of
chaste and instinctive simplicity, but of the ambition to be received by
the old families of Tilling as one of them. But what did a true
Tillingite want with a butler and a motor-car? And if these were not
sufficient to cast grave doubts on the sincerity of the inhabitants of
"Ye Smalle House," there was still very vivid in Miss Mapp's mind that
dreadful moment, undimmed by the years that had passed over it, when
Mrs. Poppit broke the silence at an altogether too sumptuous lunch by
asking Mrs. Plaistow if she did not find the super-tax a grievous burden
on "our little incomes." ... Miss Mapp had drawn in her breath sharply,
as if in pain, and after a few gasps turned the conversation.... Worst
of all, perhaps, because more recent, was the fact that Mrs. Poppit had
just received the dignity of the M.B.E., or Member of the Order of the
British Empire, and put it on her cards too, as if to keep the scandal
alive. Her services in connection with the Tilling hospital had been
entirely confined to putting her motor-car at its disposal when she did
not want it herself, and not a single member of the Tilling Working
Club, which had knitted its fingers to the bone and made enough
seven-tailed bandages to reach to the moon, had been offered a similar
decoration. If anyone had she would have known what to do: a stinging
letter to the Prime Minister saying that she worked not with hope of
distinction, but from pure patriotism, would have certainly been Miss
Mapp's rejoinder. She actually drafted the letter, when Mrs. Poppit's
name appeared, and diligently waded through column after column of
subsequent lists, to make sure that she, the originator of the Tilling
Working Club, had not been the victim of a similar insult.

Mrs. Poppit was a climber: that was what she was, and Miss Mapp was
obliged to confess that very nimble she had been. The butler and the
motor-car (so frequently at the disposal of Mrs. Poppit's friends) and
the incessant lunches and teas had done their work; she had fed rather
than starved Tilling into submission, and Miss Mapp felt that she alone
upheld the dignity of the old families. She was positively the only old
family (and a solitary spinster at that) who had not surrendered to the
Poppits. Naturally she did not carry her staunchness to the extent, so
to speak, of a hunger-strike, for that would be singular conduct, only
worthy of suffragettes, and she partook of the Poppits' hospitality to
the fullest extent possible, but (here her principles came in) she never
returned the hospitality of the Member of the British Empire, though she
occasionally asked Isabel to her house, and abused her soundly on all
possible occasions....

This spiteful retrospect passed swiftly and smoothly through Miss Mapp's
mind, and did not in the least take off from the acuteness with which
she observed the tide in the affairs of Tilling which, after the ebb of
the night, was now flowing again, nor did it, a few minutes after
Isabel's disappearance round the corner, prevent her from hearing the
faint tinkle of the telephone in her own house. At that she started to
her feet, but paused again at the door. She had shrewd suspicions about
her servants with regard to the telephone: she was convinced (though at
present she had not been able to get any evidence on the point) that
both her cook and her parlourmaid used it for their own base purposes at
her expense, and that their friends habitually employed it for
conversation with them. And perhaps--who knows?--her housemaid was the
worst of the lot, for she affected an almost incredible stupidity with
regard to the instrument, and pretended not to be able either to speak
through it or to understand its cacklings. All that might very well be
assumed in order to divert suspicion, so Miss Mapp paused by the door to
let any of these delinquents get deep in conversation with her friend: a
soft and stealthy advance towards the room called the morning-room (a
small apartment opening out of the hall, and used chiefly for the
bestowal of hats and cloaks and umbrellas) would then enable her to
catch one of them red-mouthed, or at any rate to overhear fragments of
conversation which would supply equally direct evidence.

She had got no further than the garden-door into her house when Withers,
her parlourmaid, came out. Miss Mapp thereupon began to smile and hum a
tune. Then the smile widened and the tune stopped.

"Yes, Withers?" she said. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yes, Miss," said Withers. "Miss Poppit has just rung you up----"

Miss Mapp looked much surprised.

"And to think that the telephone should have rung without my hearing
it," she said. "I must be growing deaf, Withers, in my old age. What
does Miss Poppit want?"

"She hopes you will be able to go to tea this afternoon and play bridge.
She expects that a few friends may look in at a quarter to four."

A flood of lurid light poured into Miss Mapp's mind. To expect that a
few friends may look in was the orthodox way of announcing a regular
party to which she had not been asked, and Miss Mapp knew as if by a
special revelation that if she went, she would find that she made the
eighth to complete two tables of bridge. When the butler opened the
door, he would undoubtedly have in his hand a half sheet of paper on
which were written the names of the expected friends, and if the
caller's name was not on that list, he would tell her with brazen
impudence that neither Mrs. Poppit nor Miss Poppit were at home, while,
before the baffled visitor had turned her back, he would admit another
caller who duly appeared on his reference paper.... So then the Poppits
were giving a bridge-party to which she had only been bidden at the last
moment, clearly to take the place of some expected friend who had
developed influenza, lost an aunt or been obliged to go to London: here,
too, was the explanation of why (as she had overheard yesterday) Major
Flint and Captain Puffin were only intending to play one round of golf
to-day, and to come back by the 2.20 train. And why seek any further for
the explanation of the lump of ice and the red currants (probably
damaged) which she had observed Isabel purchase? And anyone could see
(at least Miss Mapp could) why she had gone to the stationer's in the
High Street just before. Packs of cards.

Who the expected friend was who had disappointed Mrs. Poppit could be
thought out later: at present, as Miss Mapp smiled at Withers and hummed
her tune again, she had to settle whether she was going to be delighted
to accept, or obliged to decline. The argument in favour of being
obliged to decline was obvious: Mrs. Poppit deserved to be "served out"
for not including her among the original guests, and if she declined it
was quite probable that at this late hour her hostess might not be able
to get anyone else, and so one of her tables would be completely
spoiled. In favour of accepting was the fact that she would get a rubber
of bridge and a good tea, and would be able to say something
disagreeable about the red-currant fool, which would serve Miss Poppit
out for attempting to crib her ancestral dishes....

A bright, a joyous, a diabolical idea struck her, and she went herself
to the telephone, and genteelly wiped the place where Withers had
probably breathed on it.

"So kind of you, Isabel," she said, "but I am very busy to-day, and you
didn't give me much notice, did you? So I'll try to look in if I can,
shall I? I might be able to squeeze it in."

There was a pause, and Miss Mapp knew that she had put Isabel in a hole.
If she successfully tried to get somebody else, Miss Mapp might find she
could squeeze it in, and there would be nine. If she failed to get
someone else, and Miss Mapp couldn't squeeze it in, then there would be
seven.... Isabel wouldn't have a tranquil moment all day.

"Ah, do squeeze it in," she said in those horrid wheedling tones which
for some reason Major Flint found so attractive. That was one of the
weak points about him, and there were many, many others. But that was
among those which Miss Mapp found it difficult to condone.

"If I possibly can," said Miss Mapp. "But at this late hour--Good-bye,
dear, or only _au reservoir_, we hope."

She heard Isabel's polite laugh at this nearly new and delicious
Malaprop before she rang off. Isabel collected malaprops and wrote them
out in a note book. If you reversed the note-book and began at the other
end, you would find the collection of Spoonerisms, which were very
amusing, too.

Tea, followed by a bridge-party, was, in summer, the chief manifestation
of the spirit of hospitality in Tilling. Mrs. Poppit, it is true, had
attempted to do something in the way of dinner-parties, but though she
was at liberty to give as many dinner-parties as she pleased, nobody
else had followed her ostentatious example. Dinner-parties entailed a
higher scale of living; Miss Mapp, for one, had accurately counted the
cost of having three hungry people to dinner, and found that one such
dinner-party was not nearly compensated for, in the way of expense, by
being invited to three subsequent dinner-parties by your guests.
Voluptuous teas were the rule, after which you really wanted no more
than little bits of things, a cup of soup, a slice of cold tart, or a
dished-up piece of fish and some toasted cheese. Then, after the
excitement of bridge (and bridge was very exciting in Tilling), a
jig-saw puzzle or Patience cooled your brain and composed your nerves.
In winter, however, with its scarcity of daylight, Tilling commonly gave
evening bridge-parties, and asked the requisite number of friends to
drop in after dinner, though everybody knew that everybody else had only
partaken of bits of things. Probably the ruinous price of coal had
something to do with these evening bridge-parties, for the fire that
warmed your room when you were alone would warm all your guests as well,
and then, when your hospitality was returned, you could let your
sitting-room fire go out. But though Miss Mapp was already planning
something in connection with winter bridge, winter was a long way off
yet....

Before Miss Mapp got back to her window in the garden-room Mrs. Poppit's
great offensive motor-car, which she always alluded to as "the Royce,"
had come round the corner and, stopping opposite Major Flint's house,
was entirely extinguishing all survey of the street beyond. It was clear
enough then that she had sent the Royce to take the two out to the
golf-links, so that they should have time to play their round and catch
the 2.20 back to Tilling again, so as to be in good time for the
bridge-party. Even as she looked, Major Flint came out of his house on
one side of the Royce and Captain Puffin on the other. The Royce
obstructed their view of each other, and simultaneously each of them
shouted across to the house of the other. Captain Puffin emitted a loud
"Coo-ee, Major," (an Australian ejaculation, learned on his voyages),
while Major Flint bellowed "Qui-hi, Captain," which, all the world knew,
was of Oriental origin. The noise each of them made prevented him from
hearing the other, and presently one in a fuming hurry to start ran
round in front of the car at the precise moment that the other ran round
behind it, and they both banged loudly on each other's knockers. These
knocks were not so precisely simultaneous as the shouts had been, and
this led to mutual discovery, hailed with peals of falsetto laughter on
the part of Captain Puffin and the more manly guffaws of the Major....
After that the Royce lumbered down the grass-grown cobbles of the
street, and after a great deal of reversing managed to turn the corner.

Miss Mapp set off with her basket to do her shopping. She carried in it
the weekly books, which she would leave, with payment but not without
argument, at the tradesmen's shops. There was an item for suet which
she intended to resist to the last breath in her body, though her
butcher would probably surrender long before that. There was an item for
eggs at the dairy which she might have to pay, though it was a monstrous
overcharge. She had made up her mind about the laundry, she intended to
pay that bill with an icy countenance and say "Good morning for ever,"
or words to that effect, unless the proprietor instantly produced
the--the article of clothing which had been lost in the wash (like King
John's treasures), or refunded an ample sum for the replacing of it. All
these quarrelsome errands were meat and drink to Miss Mapp: Tuesday
morning, the day on which she paid and disputed her weekly bills, was as
enjoyable as Sunday mornings when, sitting close under the pulpit, she
noted the glaring inconsistencies and grammatical errors in the
discourse. After the bills were paid and business was done, there was
pleasure to follow, for there was a fitting-on at the dress-maker's, the
fitting-on of a tea-gown, to be worn at winter-evening bridge-parties,
which, unless Miss Mapp was sadly mistaken, would astound and agonize by
its magnificence all who set eyes on it. She had found the description
of it, as worn by Mrs. Titus W. Trout, in an American fashion paper; it
was of what was described as kingfisher blue, and had lumps and wedges
of lace round the edge of the skirt, and orange chiffon round the neck.
As she set off with her basket full of tradesmen's books, she pictured
to herself with watering mouth the fury, the jealousy, the madness of
envy which it would raise in all properly-constituted breasts.

In spite of her malignant curiosity and her cancerous suspicions about
all her friends, in spite, too, of her restless activities, Miss Mapp
was not, as might have been expected, a lady of lean and emaciated
appearance. She was tall and portly, with plump hands, a broad,
benignant face and dimpled, well-nourished cheeks. An acute observer
might have detected a danger warning in the sidelong glances of her
rather bulgy eyes, and in a certain tightness at the corners of her
expansive mouth, which boded ill for any who came within snapping
distance, but to a more superficial view she was a rollicking,
good-natured figure of a woman. Her mode of address, too, bore out this
misleading impression: nothing, for instance, could have been more
genial just now than her telephone voice to Isabel Poppit, or her smile
to Withers, even while she so strongly suspected her of using the
telephone for her own base purposes, and as she passed along the High
Street, she showered little smiles and bows on acquaintances and
friends. She markedly drew back her lips in speaking, being in no way
ashamed of her long white teeth, and wore a practically perpetual smile
when there was the least chance of being under observation. Though at
sermon time on Sunday, as has been already remarked, she greedily noted
the weaknesses and errors of which those twenty minutes was so
rewardingly full, she sat all the time with down-dropped eyes and a
pretty sacred smile on her lips, and now, when she spied on the other
side of the street the figure of the vicar, she tripped slantingly
across the road to him, as if by the move of a knight at chess, looking
everywhere else, and only perceiving him with glad surprise at the very
last moment. He was a great frequenter of tea parties and except in Lent
an assiduous player of bridge, for a clergyman's duties, so he very
properly held, were not confined to visiting the poor and exhorting the
sinner. He should be a man of the world, and enter into the pleasures of
his prosperous parishioners, as well as into the trials of the
troubled. Being an accomplished card-player he entered not only into
their pleasures but their pockets, and there was no lady of Tilling who
was not pleased to have Mr. Bartlett for a partner. His winnings, so he
said, he gave annually to charitable objects, though whether the
charities he selected began at home was a point on which Miss Mapp had
quite made up her mind. "Not a penny of that will the poor ever see,"
was the gist of her reflections when on disastrous days she paid him
seven-and-ninepence. She always called him "Padre," and had never
actually caught him looking over his adversaries' hands.

"Good morning, Padre," she said as soon as she perceived him. "What a
lovely day! The white butterflies were enjoying themselves so in the
sunshine in my garden. And the swallows!"

Miss Mapp, as every reader will have perceived, wanted to know whether
he was playing bridge this afternoon at the Poppits. Major Flint and
Captain Puffin certainly were, and it might be taken for granted that
Godiva Plaistow was. With the Poppits and herself that made six....

Mr. Bartlett was humorously archaic in speech. He interlarded archaisms
with Highland expressions, and his face was knobby, like a chest of
drawers.

"Ha, good morrow, fair dame," he said. "And prithee, art not thou even
as ye white butterflies?"

"Oh, Mr. Bartlett," said the fair dame with a provocative glance.
"Naughty! Comparing me to a delicious butterfly!"

"Nay, prithee, why naughty?" said he. "Yea, indeed, it's a day to make
ye little fowles rejoice! Ha! I perceive you are on the errands of the
guid wife Martha." And he pointed to the basket.

"Yes; Tuesday morning," said Miss Mapp. "I pay all my household books on
Tuesday. Poor but honest, dear Padre. What a rush life is to-day! I
hardly know which way to turn. Little duties in all directions! And you;
you're always busy! Such a busy bee!"

"Busy B? Busy Bartlett, quo' she! Yes, I'm a busy B to-day, Mistress
Mapp. Sermon all morning: choir practice at three, a baptism at six. No
time for a walk to-day, let alone a bit turn at the gowf."

Miss Mapp saw her opening, and made a busy bee line for it.

"Oh, but you should get regular exercise, Padre," said she. "You take no
care of yourself. After the choir practice now, and before the baptism,
you could have a brisk walk. To please me!"

"Yes. I had meant to get a breath of air then," said he. "But ye guid
Dame Poppit has insisted that I take a wee hand at the cartes with them,
the wifey and I. Prithee, shall we meet there?"

("That makes seven without me," thought Miss Mapp in parenthesis.) Aloud
she said:

"If I can squeeze it in, Padre. I have promised dear Isabel to do my
best."

"Well, and a lassie can do no mair," said he. "Au reservoir then."

Miss Mapp was partly pleased, partly annoyed by the agility with which
the Padre brought out her own particular joke. It was she who had
brought it down to Tilling, and she felt she had an option on it at the
end of every interview, if she meant (as she had done on this occasion)
to bring it out. On the other hand it was gratifying to see how popular
it had become. She had heard it last month when on a visit to a friend
at that sweet and refined village called Riseholme. It was rather
looked down on there, as not being sufficiently intellectual. But within
a week of Miss Mapp's return, Tilling rang with it, and she let it be
understood that she was the original humorist.

Godiva Plaistow came whizzing along the pavement, a short, stout,
breathless body who might, so thought Miss Mapp, have acted up to the
full and fell associations of her Christian name without exciting the
smallest curiosity on the part of the lewd. (Miss Mapp had much the same
sort of figure, but her height, so she was perfectly satisfied to
imagine, converted corpulence into majesty.) The swift alternation of
those Dutch-looking feet gave the impression that Mrs. Plaistow was
going at a prodigious speed, but they could stop revolving without any
warning, and then she stood still. Just when a collision with Miss Mapp
seemed imminent, she came to a dead halt.

It was as well to be quite certain that she was going to the Poppits,
and Miss Mapp forgave and forgot about the worsted until she had found
out. She could never quite manage the indelicacy of saying "Godiva,"
whatever Mrs. Plaistow's figure and age might happen to be, but always
addressed her as "Diva," very affectionately, whenever they were on
speaking terms.

"What a lovely morning, Diva darling," she said; and noticing that Mr.
Bartlett was well out of earshot, "The white butterflies were enjoying
themselves so in the sunshine in my garden. And the swallows."

Godiva was telegraphic in speech.

"Lucky birds," she said. "No teeth. Beaks."

Miss Mapp remembered her disappearance round the dentist's corner half
an hour ago, and her own firm inference on the problem.

"Toothache, darling?" she said. "So sorry."

"Wisdom," said Godiva. "Out at one o'clock. Gas. Ready for bridge this
afternoon. Playing? Poppits."

"If I can squeeze it in, dear," said Miss Mapp. "Such a hustle to-day."

Diva put her hand to her face as "wisdom" gave her an awful twinge. Of
course she did not believe in the "hustle," but her pangs prevented her
from caring much.

"Meet you then," she said. "Shall be all comfortable then. Au----"

This was more than could be borne, and Miss Mapp hastily interrupted.

"Au reservoir, Diva dear," she said with extreme acerbity, and Diva's
feet began swiftly revolving again.

The problem about the bridge-party thus seemed to be solved. The two
Poppits, the two Bartletts, the Major and the Captain with Diva darling
and herself made eight, and Miss Mapp with a sudden recrudescence of
indignation against Isabel with regard to the red-currant fool and the
belated invitation, made up her mind that she would not be able to
squeeze it in, thus leaving the party one short. Even apart from the
red-currant fool it served the Poppits right for not asking her
originally, but only when, as seemed now perfectly clear, somebody else
had disappointed them. But just as she emerged from the butcher's shop,
having gained a complete victory in the matter of that suet, without
expending the last breath in her body or anything like it, the whole of
the seemingly solid structure came toppling to the ground. For on
emerging, flushed with triumph, leaving the baffled butcher to try his
tricks on somebody else if he chose but not on Miss Mapp, she ran
straight into the Disgrace of Tilling and her sex, the suffragette,
post-impressionist artist (who painted from the nude, both male and
female), the socialist and the Germanophil, all incarnate in one frame.
In spite of these execrable antecedents, it was quite in vain that Miss
Mapp had tried to poison the collective mind of Tilling against this
Creature. If she hated anybody, and she undoubtedly did, she hated Irene
Coles. The bitterest part of it all was that if Miss Coles was amused at
anybody, and she undoubtedly was, she was amused at Miss Mapp.

Miss Coles was strolling along in the attire to which Tilling generally
had got accustomed, but Miss Mapp never. She had an old wide-awake hat
jammed down on her head, a tall collar and stock, a large loose coat,
knickerbockers and grey stockings. In her mouth was a cigarette, in her
hand she swung the orthodox wicker-basket. She had certainly been to the
other fishmonger's at the end of the High Street, for a lobster, revived
perhaps after a sojourn on the ice, by this warm sun, which the
butterflies and the swallows had been rejoicing in, was climbing with
claws and waving legs over the edge of it.

Irene removed her cigarette from her mouth and did something in the
gutter which is usually associated with the floor of third-class smoking
carriages. Then her handsome, boyish face, more boyish because her hair
was closely clipped, broke into a broad grin.

"Hullo, Mapp!" she said. "Been giving the tradesmen what for on Tuesday
morning?"

Miss Mapp found it extremely difficult to bear this obviously insolent
form of address without a spasm of rage. Irene called her Mapp because
she chose to, and Mapp (more bitterness) felt it wiser not to provoke
Coles. She had a dreadful, humorous tongue, an indecent disregard of
public or private opinion, and her gift of mimicry was as appalling as
her opinion about the Germans. Sometimes Miss Mapp alluded to her as
"quaint Irene," but that was as far as she got in the way of reprisals.

"Oh, you sweet thing!" she said. "Treasure!"

Irene, in some ghastly way, seemed to take note of this. Why men like
Captain Puffin and Major Flint found Irene "fetching" and "killing" was
more than Miss Mapp could understand, or wanted to understand.

Quaint Irene looked down at her basket.

"Why, there's my lunch going over the top like those beastly British
Tommies," she said, "Get back, love."

Miss Mapp could not quite determine whether "love" was a sarcastic echo
of "Treasure." It seemed probable.

"Oh, what a dear little lobster," she said. "Look at his sweet claws."

"I shall do more than look at them soon," said Irene, poking it into her
basket again. "Come and have tiffin, qui-hi, I've got to look after
myself to-day."

"What has happened to your devoted Lucy?" asked Miss Mapp. Irene lived
in a very queer way with one gigantic maid, who, but for her sex, might
have been in the Guards.

"Ill. I suspect scarlet-fever," said Irene. "Very infectious, isn't it?
I was up nursing her all last night."

Miss Mapp recoiled. She did not share Major Flint's robust views about
microbes.

"But I hope, dear, you've thoroughly disinfected----"

"Oh, yes. Soap and water," said Irene. "By the way, are you Poppiting
this afternoon?"

"If I can squeeze it in," said Miss Mapp.

"We'll meet again, then. Oh----"

"Au reservoir," said Miss Mapp instantly.

"No; not that silly old chestnut!" said Irene. "I wasn't going to say
that. I was only going to say: 'Oh, do come to tiffin.' You and me and
the lobster. Then you and me. But it's a bore about Lucy. I was painting
her. Fine figure, gorgeous legs. You wouldn't like to sit for me till
she's well again?"

Miss Mapp gave a little squeal and bolted into her dressmaker's. She
always felt battered after a conversation with Irene, and needed
kingfisher blue to restore her.




CHAPTER II


There is not in all England a town so blatantly picturesque as Tilling,
nor one, for the lover of level marsh land, of tall reedy dykes, of
enormous sunsets and rims of blue sea on the horizon, with so fortunate
an environment. The hill on which it is built rises steeply from the
level land, and, crowned by the great grave church so conveniently close
to Miss Mapp's residence, positively consists of quaint corners,
rough-cast and timber cottages, and mellow Georgian fronts. Corners and
quaintnesses, gems, glimpses and bits are an obsession to the artist,
and in consequence, during the summer months, not only did the majority
of its inhabitants turn out into the cobbled ways with sketching-blocks,
canvases and paintboxes, but every morning brought into the town
charabancs from neighbouring places loaded with passengers, many of whom
joined the artistic residents, and you would have thought (until an
inspection of their productions convinced you of the contrary) that some
tremendous outburst of Art was rivalling the Italian Renaissance. For
those who were capable of tackling straight lines and the intricacies of
perspective there were the steep cobbled streets of charming and
irregular architecture, while for those who rightly felt themselves
colourists rather than architectural draughtsmen, there was the view
from the top of the hill over the marshes. There, but for one straight
line to mark the horizon (and that could easily be misty) there were no
petty conventionalities in the way of perspective, and the eager
practitioner could almost instantly plunge into vivid greens and
celestial blues, or, at sunset, into pinks and chromes and rose-madder.

Tourists who had no pictorial gifts would pick their way among the
sketchers, and search the shops for cracked china and bits of brass. Few
if any of them left without purchasing one of the famous Tilling
money-boxes, made in the shape of a pottery pig, who bore on his back
that remarkable legend of his authenticity which ran:

    "I won't be druv,
    Though I am willing.
    Good morning, my love,
    Said the Pig of Tilling."

Miss Mapp had a long shelf full of these in every colour to adorn her
dining-room. The one which completed her collection, of a pleasant
magenta colour, had only just been acquired. She called them "My sweet
rainbow of piggies," and often when she came down to breakfast,
especially if Withers was in the room, she said: "Good morning, quaint
little piggies." When Withers had left the room she counted them.

The corner where the street took a turn towards the church, just below
the window of her garden-room, was easily the most popular stance for
sketchers. You were bewildered and bowled over by "bits." For the most
accomplished of all there was that rarely attempted feat, the view of
the steep downward street, which, in spite of all the efforts of the
artist, insisted, in the sketch, on going up hill instead. Then, next in
difficulty, was the street after it had turned, running by the
gardener's cottage up to the churchyard and the church. This, in spite
of its difficulty, was a very favourite subject, for it included, on the
right of the street, just beyond Miss Mapp's garden wall, the famous
crooked chimney, which was continually copied from every point of view.
The expert artist would draw it rather more crooked than it really was,
in order that there might be no question that he had not drawn it
crooked by accident. This sketch was usually negotiated from the three
steps in front of Miss Mapp's front door. Opposite the
church-and-chimney-artists would sit others, drawing the front door
itself (difficult), and moistening their pencils at their cherry lips,
while a little further down the street was another battalion hard at
work at the gabled front of the garden-room and its picturesque bow. It
was a favourite occupation of Miss Mapp's, when there was a decent
gathering of artists outside, to pull a table right into the window of
the garden-room, in full view of them, and, quite unconscious of their
presence, to arrange flowers there with a smiling and pensive
countenance. She had other little playful public pastimes: she would get
her kitten from the house, and induce it to sit on the table while she
diverted it with the tassel of the blind, and she would kiss it on its
sweet little sooty head, or she would write letters in the window, or
play Patience there, and then suddenly become aware that there was no
end of ladies and gentlemen looking at her. Sometimes she would come out
of the house, if the steps were very full, with her own sketching
paraphernalia in her hands and say, ever so coyly: "May I scriggle
through?" or ask the squatters on her own steps if they could find a
little corner for her. That was so interesting for them: they would
remember afterwards that just while they were engaged on their sketches,
the lady of that beautiful house at the corner, who had been playing
with her kitten in the window, came out to sketch too. She addressed
gracious and yet humble remarks to them: "I see you are painting my
sweet little home. May I look? Oh, what a lovely little sketch!" Once,
on a never-to-be-forgotten day, she observed one of them take a camera
from his pocket and rapidly focus her as she stood on the top step. She
turned full-faced and smiling to the camera just in time to catch the
click of the shutter, but then it was too late to hide her face, and
perhaps the picture might appear in the _Graphic_ or the _Sketch_, or
among the posturing nymphs of a neighbouring watering-place....

This afternoon she was content to "scriggle" through the sketchers, and
humming a little tune, she passed up to the churchyard. ("Scriggle" was
one of her own words, highly popular; it connoted squeezing and
wriggling.) There she carefully concealed herself under the boughs of
the weeping ash tree directly opposite the famous south porch of the
church. She had already drawn in the lines of this south porch on her
sketching-block, transferring them there by means of a tracing from a
photograph, so that formed a very promising beginning to her sketch. But
she was nicely placed not only with regard to her sketch, for, by
peeping through the pretty foliage of the tree, she could command the
front door of Mrs. Poppit's (M.B.E.) house.

Miss Mapp's plans for the bridge-party had, of course, been completely
upset by the encounter with Irene in the High Street. Up till that
moment she had imagined that, with the two ladies of the house and the
Bartletts and the Major and the Captain and Godiva and herself, two
complete tables of bridge would be formed, and she had, therefore,
determined that she would not be able to squeeze the party into her
numerous engagements, thereby spoiling the second table. But now
everything was changed: there were eight without her, and unless, at a
quarter to four, she saw reason to suppose, by noting the arrivals at
the house, that three bridge tables were in contemplation, she had made
up her mind to "squeeze it in," so that there would be nine gamblers,
and Isabel or her mother, if they had any sense of hospitality to their
guests, would be compelled to sit out for ever and ever. Miss Mapp had
been urgently invited: sweet Isabel had made a great point of her
squeezing it in, and if sweet Isabel, in order to be certain of a
company of eight, had asked quaint Irene as well, it would serve her
right. An additional reason, besides this piece of good-nature in
managing to squeeze it in, for the sake of sweet Isabel, lay in the fact
that she would be able to take some red-currant fool, and after one
spoonful exclaim "Delicious," and leave the rest uneaten.

The white butterflies and the swallows were still enjoying themselves in
the sunshine, and so, too, were the gnats, about whose pleasure,
especially when they settled on her face, Miss Mapp did not care so
much. But soon she quite ceased to regard them, for, before the quaint
little gilded boys on each side of the clock above the north porch had
hammered out the three-quarters after three on their bells, visitors
began to arrive at the Poppits' door, and Miss Mapp was very active
looking through the boughs of the weeping ash and sitting down again to
smile and ponder over her sketch with her head a little on one side, if
anybody approached. One by one the expected guests presented themselves
and were admitted: Major Flint and Captain Puffin, the Padre and his
wife, darling Diva with her head muffled in a "cloud," and finally
Irene, still dressed as she had been in the morning, and probably
reeking with scarlet-fever. With the two Poppits these made eight
players, so as soon as Irene had gone in, Miss Mapp hastily put her
sketching things away, and holding her admirably-accurate drawing with
its wash of sky not quite dry, in her hand, hurried to the door, for it
would never do to arrive after the two tables had started, since in that
case it would be she who would have to sit out.

Boon opened the door to her three staccato little knocks, and sulkily
consulted his list. She duly appeared on it and was admitted. Having
banged the door behind her he crushed the list up in his hand and threw
it into the fireplace: all those whose presence was desired had arrived,
and Boon would turn his bovine eye on any subsequent caller, and say
that his mistress was out.

"And may I put my sketching things down here, please, Boon," said Miss
Mapp ingratiatingly. "And will no one touch my drawing? It's a little
wet still. The church porch."

Boon made a grunting noise like the Tilling pig, and slouched away in
front of her down the passage leading to the garden, sniffing. There
they were, with the two bridge-tables set out in a shady corner of the
lawn, and a buffet vulgarly heaped with all sorts of dainty confections
which made Miss Mapp's mouth water, obliging her to swallow rapidly once
or twice before she could manage a wide, dry smile: Isabel advanced.

"De-do, dear," said Miss Mapp. "Such a rush! But managed to squeeze it
in, as you wouldn't let me off."

"Oh, that was nice of you, Miss Mapp," said Isabel.

A wild and awful surmise seized Miss Mapp.

"And your dear mother?" she said. "Where is Mrs. Poppit?"

"Mamma had to go to town this morning. She won't be back till close on
dinner-time."

Miss Mapp's smile closed up like a furled umbrella. The trap had snapped
behind her: it was impossible now to scriggle away. She had completed,
instead of spoiling, the second table.

"So we're just eight," said Isabel, poking at her, so to speak, through
the wires. "Shall we have a rubber first and then some tea? Or tea
first. What says everybody?"

Restless and hungry murmurs, like those heard at the sea-lions'
enclosure in the Zoological Gardens when feeding-time approaches, seemed
to indicate tea first, and with gallant greetings from the Major, and
archaistic welcomes from the Padre, Miss Mapp headed the general
drifting movement towards the buffet. There may have been tea there, but
there was certainly iced coffee and Lager beer and large jugs with dew
on the outside and vegetables floating in a bubbling liquid in the
inside, and it was all so vulgar and opulent that with one accord
everyone set to work in earnest, in order that the garden should present
a less gross and greedy appearance. But there was no sign at present of
the red-currant fool, which was baffling....

"And have you had a good game of golf, Major?" asked Miss Mapp, making
the best of these miserable circumstances. "Such a lovely day! The white
butterflies were enjoying----"

She became aware that Diva and the Padre, who had already heard about
the white butterflies, were in her immediate neighbourhood, and broke
off.

"Which of you beat? Or should I say 'won!'" she asked.

Major Flint's long moustache was dripping with Lager beer, and he made a
dexterous, sucking movement.

"Well, the Army and the Navy had it out," he said. "And for once
Britain's Navy was not invincible, eh, Puffin?"

Captain Puffin limped away pretending not to hear, and took his heaped
plate and brimming glass in the direction of Irene.

"But I'm sure Captain Puffin played quite beautifully too," said Miss
Mapp in the vain attempt to detain him. She liked to collect all the men
round her, and then scold them for not talking to the other ladies.

"Well, a game's a game," said the Major. "It gets through the hours,
Miss Mapp. Yes: we finished at the fourteenth hole, and hurried back to
more congenial society. And what have you done to-day? Fairy-errands,
I'll be bound. Titania! Ha!"

Suet errands and errands about a missing article of underclothing were
really the most important things that Miss Mapp had done to-day, now
that her bridge-party scheme had so miscarried, but naturally she would
not allude to these.

"A little gardening," she said. "A little sketching. A little singing.
Not time to change my frock and put on something less shabby. But I
wouldn't have kept sweet Isabel's bridge-party waiting for anything, and
so I came straight from my painting here. Padre, I've been trying to
draw the lovely south porch. But so difficult! I shall give up trying to
draw, and just enjoy myself with looking. And there's your dear Evie!
How de do, Evie love?"

Godiva Plaistow had taken off her cloud for purposes of mastication, but
wound it tightly round her head again as soon as she had eaten as much
as she could manage. This had to be done on one side of her mouth, or
with the front teeth in the nibbling manner of a rabbit. Everybody, of
course, by now knew that she had had a wisdom tooth out at one p.m. with
gas, and she could allude to it without explanation.

"Dreamed I was playing bridge," she said, "and had a hand of aces. As I
played the first it went off in my hand. All over. Blood. Hope it'll
come true. Bar the blood."

Miss Mapp found herself soon afterwards partnered with Major Flint and
opposed by Irene and the Padre. They had hardly begun to consider their
first hands when Boon staggered out into the garden under the weight of
a large wooden bucket, packed with ice, that surrounded an interior
cylinder.

"Red currant fool at last," thought Miss Mapp, adding aloud: "O poor
little me, is it, to declare? Shall I say 'no trumps?'"

"Mustn't consult your partner, Mapp," said Irene, puffing the end of her
cigarette out of its holder. Irene was painfully literal.

"I don't, darling," said Miss Mapp, beginning to fizz a little. "No
trumps. Not a trump. Not any sort of trump. There! What are we playing
for, by the way?"

"Bob a hundred," said the Padre, forgetting to be either Scotch or
archaic.

"Oh, gambler! You want the poor-box to be the rich box, Padre," said
Miss Mapp, surveying her magnificent hand with the greatest
satisfaction. If it had not contained so many court-cards, she would
have proposed playing for sixpence, not a shilling a hundred.

All semblance of manners was invariably thrown to the winds by the
ladies of Tilling when once bridge began; primeval hatred took their
place. The winners of any hand were exasperatingly condescending to the
losers, and the losers correspondingly bitter and tremulous. Miss Mapp
failed to get her contract, as her partner's contribution to success
consisted of more twos and threes than were ever seen together before,
and when quaint Irene at the end said, "Bad luck, Mapp," Miss Mapp's
hands trembled so much with passion that she with difficulty marked the
score. But she could command her voice sufficiently to say, "Lovely of
you to be sympathetic, dear." Irene in answer gave a short, hoarse laugh
and dealed.

By this time Boon had deposited at the left hand of each player a cup
containing a red creamy fluid, on the surface of which bubbles
intermittently appeared. Isabel, at this moment being dummy, had
strolled across from the other table to see that everybody was
comfortable and provided with sustenance in times of stress, and here
was clearly the proper opportunity for Miss Mapp to take a spoonful of
this attempt at red-currant fool, and with a wry face, hastily (but not
too hastily) smothered in smiles, to push the revolting compound away
from her. But the one spoonful that she took was so delicious and
exhilarating, that she was positively unable to be good for Isabel.
Instead, she drank her cup to the dregs in an absent manner, while
considering how many trumps were out. The red-currant fool made a
similarly agreeable impression on Major Flint.

"'Pon my word," he said. "That's amazingly good. Cooling on a hot day
like this. Full of champagne."

Miss Mapp, seeing that it was so popular, had, of course, to claim it
again as a family invention.

"No, dear Major," she said. "There's no champagne in it. It's my
Grandmamma Mapp's famous red-currant fool, with little additions perhaps
by me. No champagne: yolk of egg and a little cream. Dear Isabel has got
it very nearly right."

The Padre had promised to take more tricks in diamonds than he had the
slightest chance of doing. His mental worry communicated itself to his
voice.

"And why should there be nary a wee drappie o' champagne in it?" he
said, "though your Grandmamma Mapp did invent it. Weel, let's see your
hand, partner. Eh, that's a sair sight."

"And there'll be a sair wee score agin us when ye're through with the
playin' o' it," said Irene, in tones that could not be acquitted of a
mocking intent. "Why the hell--hallelujah did you go on when I didn't
support you?"

Even that one glass of red-currant fool, though there was no champagne
in it, had produced, together with the certainty that her opponent had
overbidden his hand, a pleasant exhilaration in Miss Mapp; but yolk of
egg, as everybody knew, was a strong stimulant. Suddenly the name
red-currant fool seemed very amusing to her.

"Red-currant fool!" she said. "What a quaint, old-fashioned name! I
shall invent some others. I shall tell my cook to make some
gooseberry-idiot, or strawberry-donkey.... My play, I think. A ducky
little ace of spades."

"Haw! haw! gooseberry idiot!" said her partner. "Capital! You won't beat
that in a hurry! And a two of spades on the top of it."

"You wouldn't expect to find a two of spades at the bottom of it," said
the Padre with singular acidity.

The Major was quick to resent this kind of comment from a man, cloth or
no cloth.

"Well, by your leave, Bartlett, by your leave, I repeat," he said, "I
shall expect to find twos of spades precisely where I please, and when I
want your criticism----"

Miss Mapp hastily intervened.

"And after my wee ace, a little king-piece," she said. "And if my
partner doesn't play the queen to it! Delicious! And I play just one
more.... Yes ... lovely, partner puts wee trumpy on it! I'm not
surprised; it takes more than that to surprise me; and then Padre's got
another spade, I ken fine!"

"Hoots!" said the Padre with temperate disgust.

The hand proceeded for a round or two in silence, during which, by winks
and gestures to Boon, the Major got hold of another cupful of
red-currant fool. There was already a heavy penalty of tricks against
Miss Mapp's opponents, and after a moment's refreshment, the Major led a
club, of which, at this period, Miss Mapp seemed to have none. She felt
happier than she had been ever since, trying to spoil Isabel's second
table, she had only succeeded in completing it.

"Little trumpy again," she said, putting it on with the lightness of one
of the white butterflies and turning the trick. "Useful little
trumpy----"

She broke off suddenly from the chant of victory which ladies of Tilling
were accustomed to indulge in during cross-roughs, for she discovered in
her hand another more than useless little clubby.... The silence that
succeeded became tense in quality. Miss Mapp knew she had revoked and
squeezed her brains to think how she could possibly dispose of the card,
while there was a certain calmness about the Padre, which but too
clearly indicated that he was quite content to wait for the inevitable
disclosure. This came at the last trick, and though Miss Mapp made one
forlorn attempt to thrust the horrible little clubby underneath the
other cards and gather them up, the Padre pounced on it.

"What ho, fair lady!" he said, now completely restored. "Methinks thou
art forsworn! Let me have a keek at the last trick but three! Verily I
wis that thou didst trump ye club aforetime. I said so; there it is. Eh,
that's bonny for us, partner!"

Miss Mapp, of course, denied it all, and a ruthless reconstruction of
the tricks took place. The Major, still busy with red-currant fool, was
the last to grasp the disaster, and then instantly deplored the
unsportsmanlike greed of his adversaries.

"Well, I should have thought in a friendly game like this----" he said.
"Of course, you're within your right, Bartlett: might is right, hey? but
upon my word, a pound of flesh, you know.... Can't think what made you
do it, partner."

"You never asked me if I had any more clubs," said Miss Mapp shrilly,
giving up for the moment the contention that she had not revoked. "I
always ask if my partner has no more of a suit, and I always maintain
that a revoke is more the partner's fault than the player's. Of course,
if our adversaries claim it----"

"Naturally we do, Mapp," said Irene. "You were down on me sharp enough
the other day."

Miss Mapp wrinkled her face up into the sweetest and extremest smile of
which her mobile features were capable.

"Darling, you won't mind my telling you that just at this moment you are
being dummy," she said, "and so you mustn't speak a single word.
Otherwise there is no revoke, even if there was at all, which I
consider far from proved yet."

There was no further proof possible beyond the clear and final evidence
of the cards, and since everybody, including Miss Mapp herself, was
perfectly well aware that she had revoked, their opponents merely marked
up the penalty and the game proceeded. Miss Mapp, of course, following
the rule of correct behaviour after revoking, stiffened into a state of
offended dignity, and was extremely polite and distant with partner and
adversaries alike. This demeanour became even more majestic when in the
next hand the Major led out of turn. The moment he had done it, Miss
Mapp hurriedly threw a random card out of her hand on to the table, in
the hope that Irene, by some strange aberration, would think she had led
first.

"Wait a second," said she. "I call a lead. Give me a trump, please."

Suddenly the awful expression as of some outraged empress faded from
Miss Mapp's face, and she gave a little shriek of laughter which sounded
like a squeaking slate pencil.

"Haven't got one, dear," she said. "Now may I have your permission to
lead what I think best? Thank you."

There now existed between the four players that state of violent
animosity which was the usual atmosphere towards the end of a rubber.
But it would have been a capital mistake to suppose that they were not
all enjoying themselves immensely. Emotion is the salt of life, and here
was no end of salt. Everyone was overbidding his hand, and the penalty
tricks were a glorious cause of vituperation, scarcely veiled, between
the partners who had failed to make good, and caused epidemics of
condescending sympathy from the adversaries which produced a passion in
the losers far keener than their fury at having lost. What made the
concluding stages of this contest the more exciting was that an evening
breeze suddenly arising just as a deal was ended, made the cards rise in
the air like a covey of partridges. They were recaptured, and all the
hands were found to be complete with the exception of Miss Mapp's, which
had a card missing. This, an ace of hearts, was discovered by the Padre,
face upwards, in a bed of mignonette, and he was vehement in claiming a
fresh deal, on the grounds that the card was exposed. Miss Mapp could
not speak at all in answer to this preposterous claim: she could only
smile at him, and proceed to declare trumps as if nothing had
happened.... The Major alone failed to come up to the full measure of
these enjoyments, for though all the rest of them were as angry with him
as they were with each other, he remained in a most indecorous state of
good-humour, drinking thirstily of the red-currant fool, and when he was
dummy, quite failing to mind whether Miss Mapp got her contract or not.
Captain Puffin, at the other table, seemed to be behaving with the same
impropriety, for the sound of his shrill, falsetto laugh was as regular
as his visits to the bucket of red-currant fool. What if there was
champagne in it after all, so Miss Mapp luridly conjectured! What if
this unseemly good-humour was due to incipient intoxication? She took a
little more of that delicious decoction herself.

It was unanimously determined, when the two rubbers came to an end
almost simultaneously, that, as everything was so pleasant and
agreeable, there should be no fresh sorting of the players. Besides, the
second table was only playing stakes of sixpence a hundred, and it would
be very awkward and unsettling that anyone should play these moderate
points in one rubber and those high ones the next. But at this point
Miss Mapp's table was obliged to endure a pause, for the Padre had to
hurry away just before six to administer the rite of baptism in the
church which was so conveniently close. The Major afforded a good deal
of amusement, as soon as he was out of hearing, by hoping that he would
not baptize the child the Knave of Hearts if it was a boy, or, if a
girl, the Queen of Spades; but in order to spare the susceptibilities of
Mrs. Bartlett, this admirable joke was not communicated to the next
table, but enjoyed privately. The author of it, however, made a note in
his mind to tell it to Captain Puffin, in the hopes that it would cause
him to forget his ruinous half-crown defeat at golf this morning. Quite
as agreeable was the arrival of a fresh supply of red-currant fool, and
as this had been heralded a few minutes before by a loud pop from the
butler's pantry, which looked on to the lawn, Miss Mapp began to waver
in her belief that there was no champagne in it, particularly as it
would not have suited the theory by which she accounted for the Major's
unwonted good-humour, and her suggestion that the pop they had all heard
so clearly was the opening of a bottle of stone ginger-beer was not
delivered with conviction. To make sure, however, she took one more sip
of the new supply, and, irradiated with smiles, made a great concession.

"I believe I was wrong," she said. "There is something in it beyond yolk
of egg and cream. Oh, there's Boon; he will tell us."

She made a seductive face at Boon, and beckoned to him.

"Boon, will you think it very inquisitive of me," she asked archly, "if
I ask you whether you have put a teeny drop of champagne into this
delicious red-currant fool?"

"A bottle and a half, Miss," said Boon morosely, "and half a pint of old
brandy. Will you have some more, Miss?"

Miss Mapp curbed her indignation at this vulgar squandering of precious
liquids, so characteristic of Poppits. She gave a shrill little laugh.

"Oh, no, thank you, Boon!" she said. "I mustn't have any more.
Delicious, though."

Major Flint let Boon fill up his cup while he was not looking.

"And we owe this to your grandmother, Miss Mapp?" he asked gallantly.
"That's a second debt."

Miss Mapp acknowledged this polite subtlety with a reservation.

"But not the champagne in it, Major," she said. "Grandmamma Nap----"

The Major beat his thigh in ecstasy.

"Ha! That's a good Spoonerism for Miss Isabel's book," he said. "Miss
Isabel, we've got a new----"

Miss Mapp was very much puzzled at this slight confusion in her speech,
for her utterance was usually remarkably distinct. There might be some
little joke made at her expense on the effect of Grandmamma Mapp's
invention if this lovely Spoonerism was published. But if she who had
only just tasted the red-currant fool tripped in her speech, how amply
were Major Flint's good nature and Captain Puffin's incessant laugh
accounted for. She herself felt very good-natured, too. How pleasant it
all was!

"Oh, naughty!" she said to the Major. "Pray, hush! you're disturbing
them at their rubber. And here's the Padre back again!"

The new rubber had only just begun (indeed, it was lucky that they cut
their cards without any delay) when Mrs. Poppit appeared on her return
from her expedition to London. Miss Mapp begged her to take her hand,
and instantly began playing.

"It would really be a kindness to me, Mrs. Poppit," she said; "(No
diamonds at all, partner?) but of course, if you won't---- You've been
missing such a lovely party. So much enjoyment!"

Suddenly she saw that Mrs. Poppit was wearing on her ample breast a
small piece of riband with a little cross attached to it. Her entire
stock of good-humour vanished, and she smiled her widest.

"We needn't ask what took you to London," she said. "Congratulations!
How was the dear King?"

This rubber was soon over, and even as they were adding up the score,
there arose a shrill outcry from the next table, where Mrs. Plaistow, as
usual, had made the tale of her winnings sixpence in excess of what
anybody else considered was due to her. The sound of that was so
familiar that nobody looked up or asked what was going on.

"Darling Diva and her bawbees, Padre," said Miss Mapp in an aside. "So
modest in her demands. Oh, she's stopped! Somebody has given her
sixpence. Not another rubber? Well, perhaps it is rather late, and I
must say good-night to my flowers before they close up for the night.
All those shillings mine? Fancy!"

Miss Mapp was seething with excitement, curiosity and rage, as with
Major Flint on one side of her and Captain Puffin on the other, she was
escorted home. The excitement was due to her winnings, the rage to Mrs.
Poppit's Order, the curiosity to the clue she believed she had found to
those inexplicable lights that burned so late in the houses of her
companions. Certainly it seemed that Major Flint was trying not to step
on the joints of the paving-stones, and succeeding very imperfectly,
while Captain Puffin, on her left, was walking very unevenly on the
cobbles. Even making due allowance for the difficulty of walking evenly
there at any time, Miss Mapp could not help thinking that a teetotaller
would have made a better job of it than that. Both gentlemen talked at
once, very agreeably but rather carefully, Major Flint promising himself
a studious evening over some very interesting entries in his Indian
Diary, while Captain Puffin anticipated the speedy solution of that
problem about the Roman road which had puzzled him so long. As they said
their "Au reservoirs" to her on her doorstep, they took off their hats
more often than politeness really demanded.

Once in her house Miss Mapp postponed her good-nights to her sweet
flowers, and hurried with the utmost speed of which she was capable to
her garden-room, in order to see what her companions were doing. They
were standing in the middle of the street, and Major Flint, with
gesticulating forefinger, was being very impressive over something....

       *       *       *       *       *

Interesting as was Miss Mapp's walk home, and painful as was the light
which it had conceivably thrown on the problem that had baffled her for
so long, she might have been even more acutely disgusted had she
lingered on with the rest of the bridge-party in Mrs. Poppit's garden,
so revolting was the sycophantic loyalty of the newly-decorated Member
of the British Empire.... She described minutely her arrival at the
Palace, her momentary nervousness as she entered the Throne-room, the
instantaneousness with which that all vanished when she came face to
face with her Sovereign.

"I assure you, he gave the most gracious smile," she said, "just as if
we had known each other all our lives, and I felt at home at once. And
he said a few words to me--such a beautiful voice he has. Dear Isabel, I
wish you had been there to hear it, and then----"

"Oh, Mamma, what did he say?" asked Isabel, to the great relief of Mrs.
Plaistow and the Bartletts, for while they were bursting with eagerness
to know with the utmost detail all that had taken place, the correct
attitude in Tilling was profound indifference to anybody of whatever
degree who did not live at Tilling, and to anything that did not happen
there. In particular, any manifestation of interest in kings or other
distinguished people was held to be a very miserable failing.... So they
all pretended to look about them, and take no notice of what Mrs. Poppit
was saying, and you might have heard a pin drop. Diva silently and
hastily unwound her cloud from over her ears, risking catching cold in
the hole where her tooth had been, so terrified was she of missing a
single syllable.

"Well, it was very gratifying," said Mrs. Poppit; "he whispered to some
gentleman standing near him, who I think was the Lord Chamberlain, and
then told me how interested he had been in the good work of the Tilling
hospital, and how especially glad he was to be able--and just then he
began to pin my Order on--to be able to recognize it. Now I call that
wonderful to know all about the Tilling hospital! And such neat, quick
fingers he has: I am sure it would take me double the time to make a
safety-pin hold, and then he gave me another smile, and passed me on, so
to speak, to the Queen, who stood next him, and who had been listening
to all he had said."

"And did she speak to you too?" asked Diva, quite unable to maintain the
right indifference.

"Indeed she did: she said, 'So pleased,' and what she put into those two
words I'm sure I can never convey to you. I could hear how sincere they
were: it was no set form of words, as if she meant nothing by it. She
_was_ pleased: she was just as interested in what I had done for the
Tilling hospital as the King was. And the crowds outside: they lined the
Mall for at least fifty yards. I was bowing and smiling on this side and
that till I felt quite dizzy."

"And was the Prince of Wales there?" asked Diva, beginning to wind her
head up again. She did not care about the crowds.

"No, he wasn't there," said Mrs. Poppit, determined to have no
embroidery in her story, however much other people, especially Miss
Mapp, decorated remarkable incidents till you hardly recognized them.
"He wasn't there. I daresay something had unexpectedly detained him,
though I shouldn't wonder if before long we all saw him. For I noticed
in the evening paper which I was reading on the way down here, after I
had seen the King, that he was going to stay with Lord Ardingly for this
very next week-end. And what's the station for Ardingly Park if it isn't
Tilling? Though it's quite a private visit, I feel convinced that the
right and proper thing for me to do is to be at the station, or, at any
rate, just outside, with my Order on. I shall not claim acquaintance
with him, or anything of that kind," said Mrs. Poppit, fingering her
Order; "but after my reception to-day at the Palace, nothing can be more
likely than that His Majesty might mention--quite casually, of
course--to the Prince that he had just given a decoration to Mrs. Poppit
of Tilling. And it would make me feel very awkward to think that that
had happened, and I was not somewhere about to make my curtsy."

"Oh, Mamma, may I stand by you, or behind you?" asked Isabel, completely
dazzled by the splendour of this prospect and prancing about the
lawn....

This was quite awful: it was as bad as, if not worse than, the
historically disastrous remark about super-tax, and a general rigidity,
as of some partial cataleptic seizure, froze Mrs. Poppit's guests,
rendering them, like incomplete Marconi installations, capable of
receiving, but not of transmitting. They received these impressions,
they also continued (mechanically) to receive more chocolates and
sandwiches, and such refreshments as remained on the buffet; but no one
could intervene and stop Mrs. Poppit from exposing herself further. One
reason for this, of course, as already indicated, was that they all
longed for her to expose herself as much as she possibly could, for if
there was a quality--and, indeed, there were many--on which Tilling
prided itself, it was on its immunity from snobbishness: there were, no
doubt, in the great world with which Tilling concerned itself so little
kings and queens and dukes and Members of the Order of the British
Empire; but every Tillingite knew that he or she (particularly she) was
just as good as any of them, and indeed better, being more fortunate
than they in living in Tilling.... And if there was a process in the
world which Tilling detested, it was being patronized, and there was
this woman telling them all what she felt it right and proper for her,
as Mrs. Poppit of Tilling (M.B.E.), to do, when the Heir Apparent should
pass through the town on Saturday. The rest of them, Mrs. Poppit
implied, might do what they liked, for they did not matter; but
she--she must put on her Order and make her curtsy. And Isabel, by her
expressed desire to stand beside, or even behind, her mother for this
degrading moment had showed of what stock she came.

Mrs. Poppit had nothing more to say on this subject; indeed, as Diva
reflected, there was really nothing more that could be said, unless she
suggested that they should all bow and curtsy to her for the future, and
their hostess proceeded, as they all took their leave, to hope that they
had enjoyed the bridge-party which she had been unavoidably prevented
from attending.

"But my absence made it possible to include Miss Mapp," she said. "I
should not have liked poor Miss Mapp to feel left out; I am always glad
to give Miss Mapp pleasure. I hope she won her rubber; she does not like
losing. Will no one have a little more red-currant fool? Boon has made
it very tolerably to-day. A Scotch recipe of my great-grandmother's."

Diva gave a little cackle of laughter as she enfolded herself in her
cloud again. She had heard Miss Mapp's ironical inquiry as to how the
dear King was, and had thought at the time that it was probably a pity
that Miss Mapp had said that.

       *       *       *       *       *

Though abhorrence of snobbery and immunity from any taint of it was so
fine a characteristic of public social life at Tilling, the expected
passage of this distinguished visitor through the town on Saturday next
became very speedily known, and before the wicker-baskets of the ladies
in their morning marketings next day were half full, there was no
quarter which the news had failed to reach. Major Flint had it from Mrs.
Plaistow, as he went down to the eleven-twenty tram out to the
golf-links, and though he had not much time to spare (for his work last
night on his old diaries had caused him to breakfast unusually late that
morning to the accompaniment of a dismal headache from
over-application), he had stopped to converse with Miss Mapp immediately
afterwards, with one eye on the time, for naturally he could not fire
off that sort of news point-blank at her, as if it was a matter of any
interest or importance.

"Good morning, dear lady," he said. "By Jove! what a picture of health
and freshness you are!"

Miss Mapp cast one glance at her basket to see that the paper quite
concealed that article of clothing which the perfidious laundry had
found. (Probably the laundry knew where it was all the time, and--in a
figurative sense, of course--was "trying it on.")

"Early to bed and early to rise, Major," she said. "I saw my sweet
flowers open their eyes this morning! Such a beautiful dew!"

"Well, my diaries kept me up late last night," he said. "When all you
fascinating ladies have withdrawn is the only time at which I can bring
myself to sit down to them."

"Let me recommend six to eight in the morning, Major," said Miss Mapp
earnestly. "Such a freshness of brain then."

That seemed to be a cul-de-sac in the way of leading up to the important
subject, and the Major tried another turning.

"Good, well-fought game of bridge we had yesterday," he said. "Just met
Mrs. Plaistow; she stopped on for a chat after we had gone."

"Dear Diva; she loves a good gossip," said Miss Mapp effusively. "Such
an interest she has in other people's affairs. So human and
sympathetic. I'm sure our dear hostess told her all about her adventures
at the Palace."

There was only seven minutes left before the tram started, and though
this was not a perfect opening, it would have to do. Besides, the Major
saw Mrs. Plaistow coming energetically along the High Street with
whirling feet.

"Yes, and we haven't finished with--ha--royalty yet," he said, getting
the odious word out with difficulty. "The Prince of Wales will be
passing through the town on Saturday, on his way to Ardingly Park, where
he is spending the Sunday."

Miss Mapp was not betrayed into the smallest expression of interest.

"That will be nice for him," she said. "He will catch a glimpse of our
beautiful Tilling."

"So he will! Well, I'm off for my game of golf. Perhaps the Navy will be
a bit more efficient to-day."

"I'm sure you will both play perfectly!" said Miss Mapp.

Diva had "popped" into the grocer's. She always popped everywhere just
now; she popped across to see a friend, and she popped home again; she
popped into church on Sunday, and occasionally popped up to town, and
Miss Mapp was beginning to feel that somebody ought to let her know,
directly or by insinuation, that she popped too much. So, thinking that
an opportunity might present itself now, Miss Mapp read the news-board
outside the stationer's till Diva popped out of the grocer's again. The
headlines of news, even the largest of them, hardly reached her brain,
because it entirely absorbed in another subject. Of course, the first
thing was to find out by what train....

Diva trundled swiftly across the street.

"Good morning, Elizabeth," she said. "You left the party too early
yesterday. Missed a lot. How the King smiled! How the Queen said 'So
pleased.'"

"Our dear hostess would like that," said Miss Mapp pensively. "She would
be so pleased, too. She and the Queen would both be pleased. Quite a
pair of them."

"By the way, on Saturday next----" began Diva.

"I know, dear," said Miss Mapp. "Major Flint told me. It seemed quite to
interest him. Now I must pop into the stationer's----"

Diva was really very obtuse.

"I'm popping in there, too," she said. "Want a time-table of the
trains."

Wild horses would not have dragged from Miss Mapp that this was
precisely what she wanted.

"I only wanted a little ruled paper," she said. "Why, here's dear Evie
popping out just as we pop in! Good morning, sweet Evie. Lovely day
again."

Mrs. Bartlett thrust something into her basket which very much resembled
a railway time-table. She spoke in a low, quick voice, as if afraid of
being overheard, and was otherwise rather like a mouse. When she was
excited she squeaked.

"So good for the harvest," she said. "Such an important thing to have a
good harvest. I hope next Saturday will be fine; it would be a pity if
he had a wet day. We were wondering, Kenneth and I, what would be the
proper thing to do, if he came over for service--oh, here is Kenneth!"

She stopped abruptly, as if afraid that she had betrayed too much
interest in next Saturday and Sunday. Kenneth would manage it much
better.

"Ha! lady fair," he exclaimed. "Having a bit crack with wee wifey? Any
news this bright morning?"

"No, dear Padre," said Miss Mapp, showing her gums. "At least, I've
heard nothing of any interest. I can only give you the news of my
garden. Such lovely new roses in bloom to-day, bless them!"

Mrs. Plaistow had popped into the stationer's, so this perjury was
undetected.

The Padre was noted for his diplomacy. Just now he wanted to convey the
impression that nothing which could happen next Saturday or Sunday could
be of the smallest interest to him; whereas he had spent an almost
sleepless night in wondering whether it would, in certain circumstances,
be proper to make a bow at the beginning of his sermon and another at
the end; whether he ought to meet the visitor at the west door; whether
the mayor ought to be told, and whether there ought to be special
psalms....

"Well, lady fair," he said. "Gossip will have it that ye Prince of Wales
is staying at Ardingly for the Sunday; indeed, he will, I suppose, pass
through Tilling on Saturday afternoon----"

Miss Mapp put her forefinger to her forehead, as if trying to recollect
something.

"Yes, now somebody did tell me that," she said. "Major Flint, I believe.
But when you asked for news I thought you meant something that really
interested me. Yes, Padre?"

"Aweel, if he comes to service on Sunday----?"

"Dear Padre, I'm sure he'll hear a very good sermon. Oh, I see what you
mean! Whether you ought to have any special hymn? Don't ask poor little
me! Mrs. Poppit, I'm sure, would tell you. She knows all about courts
and etiquette."

Diva popped out of the stationer's at this moment.

"Sold out," she announced. "Everybody wanted time-tables this morning.
Evie got the last. Have to go to the station."

"I'll walk with you, Diva, dear," said Miss Mapp. "There's a parcel
that---- Good-bye, dear Evie, au reservoir."

She kissed her hand to Mrs. Bartlett, leaving a smile behind it, as it
fluttered away from her face, for the Padre.

Miss Mapp was so impenetrably wrapped in thought as she worked among her
sweet flowers that afternoon, that she merely stared at a
"love-in-a-mist," which she had absently rooted up instead of a piece of
groundsel, without any bleeding of the heart for one of her sweet
flowers. There were two trains by which He might arrive--one at 4.15,
which would get him to Ardingly for tea, the other at 6.45. She was
quite determined to see him, but more inflexible than that resolve was
the Euclidean postulate that no one in Tilling should think that she had
taken any deliberate step to do so. For the present she had disarmed
suspicion by the blankness of her indifference as to what might happen
on Saturday or Sunday; but she herself strongly suspected that everybody
else, in spite of the public attitude of Tilling to such subjects, was
determined to see him too. How to see and not be seen was the question
which engrossed her, and though she might possibly happen to be at that
sharp corner outside the station where every motor had to go slow, on
the arrival of the 4.15, it would never do to risk being seen there
again precisely at 6.45. Mrs. Poppit, shameless in her snobbery, would
no doubt be at the station with her Order on at both these hours, if the
arrival did not take place by the first train, and Isabel would be
prancing by or behind her, and, in fact, dreadful though it was to
contemplate, all Tilling, she reluctantly believed, would be hanging
about.... Then an idea struck her, so glorious, that she put the
uprooted love-in-a-mist in the weed-basket, instead of planting it
again, and went quickly indoors, up to the attics, and from there
popped--really popped, so tight was the fit--through a trap-door on to
the roof. Yes: the station was plainly visible, and if the 4.15 was the
favoured train, there would certainly be a motor from Ardingly Park
waiting there in good time for its arrival. From the house-roof she
could ascertain that, and she would then have time to trip down the hill
and get to her coal merchant's at that sharp corner outside the station,
and ask, rather peremptorily, when the coke for her central heating
might be expected. It was due now, and though it would be unfortunate if
it arrived before Saturday, it was quite easy to smile away her
peremptory manner, and say that Withers had not told her. Miss Mapp
hated prevarication, but a major force sometimes came along.... But if
no motors from Ardingly Park were in waiting for the 4.15 (as spied from
her house-roof), she need not risk being seen in the neighbourhood of
the station, but would again make observations some few minutes before
the 6.45 was due. There was positively no other train by which He could
come....

The next day or two saw no traceable developments in the situation, but
Miss Mapp's trained sense told her that there was underground work of
some kind going on: she seemed to hear faint hollow taps and muffled
knockings, and, so to speak, the silence of some unusual pregnancy. Up
and down the High Street she observed short whispered conversations
going on between her friends, which broke off on her approach. This only
confirmed her view that these secret colloquies were connected with
Saturday afternoon, for it was not to be expected that, after her
freezing reception of the news, any projected snobbishness should be
confided to her, and though she would have liked to know what Diva and
Irene and darling Evie were meaning to do, the fact that they none of
them told her, showed that they were aware that she, at any rate, was
utterly indifferent to and above that sort of thing. She suspected, too,
that Major Flint had fallen victim to this unTilling-like mania, for on
Friday afternoon, when passing his door, which happened to be standing
open, she quite distinctly saw him in front of his glass in the hall
(standing on the head of one of the tigers to secure a better view of
himself), trying on a silk top-hat. Her own errand at this moment was to
the draper's, where she bought a quantity of pretty pale blue braid, for
a little domestic dress-making which was in arrears, and some riband of
the same tint. At this clever and unusual hour for shopping, the High
Street was naturally empty, and after a little hesitation and many
anxious glances to right and left, she plunged into the toy-shop and
bought a pleasant little Union Jack with a short stick attached to it.
She told Mr. Dabnet very distinctly that it was a present for her
nephew, and concealed it inside her parasol, where it lay quite flat and
made no perceptible bulge....

At four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, she remembered that the damp had
come in through her bedroom ceiling in a storm last winter, and told
Withers she was going to have a look to see if any tiles were loose. In
order to ascertain this for certain, she took up through the trap door a
pair of binocular glasses, through which it was also easy to identify
anybody who might be in the open yard outside the station. Even as she
looked, Mrs. Poppit and Isabel crossed the yard into the waiting-room
and ticket-office. It was a little surprising that there were not more
friends in the station-yard, but at the moment she heard a loud Qui-hi
in the street below, and cautiously peering over the parapet, she got an
admirable view of the Major in a frock-coat and tall hat. A "Coo-ee"
answered him, and Captain Puffin, in a new suit (Miss Mapp was certain
of it) and a Panama hat, joined him. They went down the street and
turned the corner.... Across the opening to the High Street there shot
the figure of darling Diva.

While waiting for them to appear again in the station-yard, Miss Mapp
looked to see what vehicles were standing there. It was already ten
minutes past four, and the Ardingly motors must have been there by this
time, if there was anything "doing" by the 4.15. But positively the only
vehicle there was an open trolly laden with a piano in a sack. Apart
from knowing all about that piano, for Mrs. Poppit had talked about
little else than her new upright Bluthner before her visit to Buckingham
Palace, a moment's reflection convinced Miss Mapp that this was a very
unlikely mode of conveyance for any guest.... She watched for a few
moments more, but as no other friends appeared in the station-yard, she
concluded that they were hanging about the street somewhere, poor
things, and decided not to make inquiries about her coke just yet.

She had tea while she arranged flowers, in the very front of the window
in her garden-room, and presently had the satisfaction of seeing many of
the baffled loyalists trudging home. There was no need to do more than
smile and tap the window and kiss her hand: they all knew that she had
been busy with her flowers, and that she knew what they had been busy
about.... Out again they all came towards half-past six, and when she
had watched the last of them down the hill, she hurried back to the
roof again, to make a final inspection of the loose tiles through her
binoculars. Brief but exciting was that inspection, for opposite the
entrance to the station was drawn up a motor. So clear was the air and
so serviceable her binoculars that she could distinguish the vulgar
coronet on the panels, and as she looked Mrs. Poppit and Isabel hurried
across the station-yard. It was then but the work of a moment to slip on
the dust-cloak trimmed with blue braid, adjust the hat with the blue
riband, and take up the parasol with its furled Union Jack inside it.
The stick of the flag was uppermost; she could whip it out in a moment.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mapp had calculated her appearance to a nicety. Just as she got to
the sharp corner opposite the station, where all cars slowed down and
her coal-merchant's office was situated, the train drew up. By the gates
into the yard were standing the Major in his top-hat, the Captain in his
Panama, Irene in a civilized skirt; Diva in a brand-new walking dress,
and the Padre and wee wifey. They were all looking in the direction of
the station, and Miss Mapp stepped into the coal-merchant's unobserved.
Oddly enough the coke had been sent three days before, and there was no
need for peremptoriness.

"So good of you, Mr. Wootten!" she said; "and why is everyone standing
about this afternoon?"

Mr. Wootten explained the reason of this, and Miss Mapp, grasping her
parasol, went out again as the car left the station. There were too many
dear friends about, she decided, to use the Union Jack, and having seen
what she wanted to she determined to slip quietly away again. Already
the Major's hat was in his hand, and he was bowing low, so too were
Captain Puffin and the Padre, while Irene, Diva and Evie were making
little ducking movements.... Miss Mapp was determined, when it came to
her turn, to show them, as she happened to be on the spot, what a proper
curtsy was.

The car came opposite her, and she curtsied so low that recovery was
impossible, and she sat down in the road. Her parasol flew out of her
hand and out of her parasol flew the Union Jack. She saw a young man
looking out of the window, dressed in khaki, grinning broadly, but not,
so she thought, graciously, and it suddenly struck her that there was
something, beside her own part in the affair, which was not as it should
be. As he put his head in again there was loud laughter from the inside
of the car.

Mr. Wootten helped her up and the entire assembly of her friends crowded
round her, hoping she was not hurt.

"No, dear Major, dear Padre, not at all, thanks," she said. "So stupid:
my ancle turned. Oh, yes, the Union Jack I bought for my nephew, it's
his birthday to-morrow. Thank you. I just came to see about my coke: of
course I thought the Prince had arrived when you all went down to meet
the 4.15. Fancy my running straight into it all! How well he looked."

This was all rather lame, and Miss Mapp hailed Mrs. Poppit's appearance
from the station as a welcome diversion.... Mrs. Poppit was looking
vexed.

"I hope you saw him well, Mrs. Poppit," said Miss Mapp, "after meeting
two trains, and taking all that trouble."

"Saw who?" said Mrs. Poppit with a deplorable lack both of manner and
grammar. "Why"--light seemed to break on her odious countenance. "Why,
you don't think that was the Prince, do you, Miss Mapp? He arrived here
at one, so the station-master has just told me, and has been playing
golf all afternoon."

The Major looked at the Captain, and the Captain at the Major. It was
months and months since they had missed their Saturday afternoon's golf.

"It was the Prince of Wales who looked out of that car-window," said
Miss Mapp firmly. "Such a pleasant smile. I should know it anywhere."

"The young man who got into the car at the station was no more the
Prince of Wales than you are," said Mrs. Poppit shrilly. "I was close to
him as he came out: I curtsied to him before I saw."

Miss Mapp instantly changed her attack: she could hardly hold her smile
on to her face for rage.

"How very awkward for you," she said. "What a laugh they will all have
over it this evening! Delicious!"

Mrs. Poppit's face suddenly took on an expression of the tenderest
solicitude.

"I hope, Miss Mapp, you didn't jar yourself when you sat down in the
road just now," she said.

"Not at all, thank you so much," said Miss Mapp, hearing her heart beat
in her throat.... If she had had a naval fifteen-inch gun handy, and had
known how to fire it, she would, with a sense of duty accomplished, have
discharged it point-blank at the Order of the Member of the British
Empire, and at anybody else who might be within range....

       *       *       *       *       *

Sunday, of course, with all the opportunities of that day, still
remained, and the seats of the auxiliary choir, which were
advantageously situated, had never been so full, but as it was all no
use, the Major and Captain Puffin left during the sermon to catch the
12.20 tram out to the links. On this delightful day it was but natural
that the pleasant walk there across the marsh was very popular, and
golfers that afternoon had a very trying and nervous time, for the
ladies of Tilling kept bobbing up from behind sand-dunes and bunkers,
as, regardless of the players, they executed swift flank marches in all
directions. Miss Mapp returned exhausted about tea-time to hear from
Withers that the Prince had spent an hour or more rambling about the
town, and had stopped quite five minutes at the corner by the
garden-room. He had actually sat down on Miss Mapp's steps and smoked a
cigarette. She wondered if the end of the cigarette was there still: it
was hateful to have cigarette-ends defiling the steps to her front-door,
and often before now, when sketchers were numerous, she had sent her
housemaid out to remove these untidy relics. She searched for it, but
was obliged to come to the reluctant conclusion that there was nothing
to remove....




CHAPTER III


Diva was sitting at the open drawing-room window of her house in the
High Street, cutting with a pair of sharp nail scissors into the old
chintz curtains which her maid had told her no longer "paid for the
mending." So, since they refused to pay for their mending any more, she
was preparing to make them pay, pretty smartly too, in other ways. The
pattern was of little bunches of pink roses peeping out through trellis
work, and it was these which she had just begun to cut out. Though
Tilling was noted for the ingenuity with which its more fashionable
ladies devised novel and quaint effects in their dress in an economical
manner, Diva felt sure, ransack her memory though she might, that nobody
had thought of _this_ before.

The hot weather had continued late into September and showed no signs
of breaking yet, and it would be agreeable to her and acutely painful to
others that just at the end of the summer she should appear in a
perfectly new costume, before the days of jumpers and heavy skirts and
large woollen scarves came in. She was preparing, therefore, to take the
light white jacket which she wore over her blouse, and cover the broad
collar and cuffs of it with these pretty roses. The belt of the skirt
would be similarly decorated, and so would the edge of it, if there were
enough clean ones. The jacket and skirt had already gone to the dyer's,
and would be back in a day or two, white no longer, but of a rich purple
hue, and by that time she would have hundreds of these little pink roses
ready to be tacked on. Perhaps a piece of the chintz, trellis and all,
could be sewn over the belt, but she was determined to have single
little bunches of roses peppered all over the collar and cuffs of the
jacket and, if possible, round the edge of the skirt. She had already
tried the effect, and was of the opinion that nobody could possibly
guess what the origin of these roses was. When carefully sewn on they
looked as if they were a design in the stuff.

She let the circumcised roses fall on to the window-seat, and from time
to time, when they grew numerous, swept them into a cardboard box.
Though she worked with zealous diligence, she had an eye to the
movements in the street outside, for it was shopping-hour, and there
were many observations to be made. She had not anything like Miss Mapp's
genius for conjecture, but her memory was appallingly good, and this was
the third morning running on which Elizabeth had gone into the grocer's.
It was odd to go to your grocer's every day like that; groceries twice a
week was sufficient for most people. From here on the floor above the
street she could easily look into Elizabeth's basket, and she certainly
was carrying nothing away with her from the grocer's, for the only thing
there was a small bottle done up in white paper with sealing wax, which,
Diva had no need to be told, certainly came from the chemist's, and was
no doubt connected with too many plums.

Miss Mapp crossed the street to the pavement below Diva's house, and
precisely as she reached it, Diva's maid opened the door into the
drawing-room, bringing in the second post, or rather not bringing in the
second post, but the announcement that there wasn't any second post.
This opening of the door caused a draught, and the bunches of roses
which littered the window-seat rose brightly in the air. Diva managed to
beat most of them down again, but two fluttered out of the window.
Precisely then, and at no other time, Miss Mapp looked up, and one
settled on her face, the other fell into her basket. Her trained
faculties were all on the alert, and she thrust them both inside her
glove for future consideration, without stopping to examine them just
then. She only knew that they were little pink roses, and that they had
fluttered out of Diva's window....

She paused on the pavement, and remembered that Diva had not yet
expressed regret about the worsted, and that she still "popped" as much
as ever. Thus Diva deserved a punishment of some sort, and happily, at
that very moment she thought of a subject on which she might be able to
make her uncomfortable. The street was full, and it would be pretty to
call up to her, instead of ringing her bell, in order to save trouble to
poor overworked Janet. (Diva only kept two servants, though of course
poverty was no crime.)

"Diva darling!" she cooed.

Diva's head looked out like a cuckoo in a clock preparing to chime the
hour.

"Hullo!" she said. "Want me?"

"May I pop up for a moment, dear?" said Miss Mapp. "That's to say if
you're not very busy."

"Pop away," said Diva. She was quite aware that Miss Mapp said "pop" in
crude inverted commas, so to speak, for purposes of mockery, and so she
said it herself more than ever. "I'll tell my maid to pop down and open
the door."

While this was being done, Diva bundled her chintz curtains together and
stored them and the roses she had cut out into her work-cupboard, for
secrecy was an essential to the construction of these decorations. But
in order to appear naturally employed, she pulled out the woollen scarf
she was knitting for the autumn and winter, forgetting for the moment
that the rose-madder stripe at the end on which she was now engaged was
made of that fatal worsted which Miss Mapp considered to have been
feloniously appropriated. That was the sort of thing Miss Mapp never
forgot. Even among her sweet flowers. Her eye fell on it the moment she
entered the room, and she tucked the two chintz roses more securely into
her glove.

"I thought I would just pop across from the grocer's," she said. "What a
pretty scarf, dear! That's a lovely shade of rose-madder. Where can I
have seen something like it before?"

This was clearly ironical, and had best be answered by irony. Diva was
no coward.

"Couldn't say, I'm sure," she said.

Miss Mapp appeared to recollect, and smiled as far back as her
wisdom-teeth. (Diva couldn't do that.)

"I have it," she said. "It was the wool I ordered at Heynes's, and then
he sold it you, and I couldn't get any more."

"So it was," said Diva. "Upset you a bit. There was the wool in the
shop. I bought it."

"Yes, dear; I see you did. But that wasn't what I popped in about. This
coal-strike, you know."

"Got a cellar full," said Diva.

"Diva, you've not been hoarding, have you?" asked Miss Mapp with great
anxiety. "They can take away every atom of coal you've got, if so, and
fine you I don't know what for every hundredweight of it."

"Pooh!" said Diva, rather forcing the indifference of this rude
interjection.

"Yes, love, pooh by all means, if you like poohing!" said Miss Mapp.
"But I should have felt very unfriendly if one morning I found you were
fined--found you were fined--quite a play upon words--and I hadn't
warned you."

Diva felt a little less poohish.

"But how much do they allow you to have?" she asked.

"Oh, quite a little: enough to go on with. But I daresay they won't
discover you. I just took the trouble to come and warn you."

Diva did remember something about hoarding; there had surely been
dreadful exposures of prudent housekeepers in the papers which were very
uncomfortable reading.

"But all these orders were only for the period of the war," she said.

"No doubt you're right, dear," said Miss Mapp brightly. "I'm sure I hope
you are. Only if the coal strike comes on, I think you'll find that the
regulations against hoarding are quite as severe as they ever were. Food
hoarding, too. Twemlow--such a civil man--tells me that he thinks we
shall have plenty of food, or anyhow sufficient for everybody for quite
a long time, provided that there's no hoarding. Not been hoarding food,
too, dear Diva? You naughty thing: I believe that great cupboard is full
of sardines and biscuits and bovril."

"Nothing of the kind," said Diva indignantly. "You shall see for
yourself"--and then she suddenly remembered that the cupboard was full
of chintz curtains and little bunches of pink roses, neatly cut out of
them, and a pair of nail scissors.

There was a perfectly perceptible pause, during which Miss Mapp noticed
that there were no curtains over the window. There certainly used to be,
and they matched with the chintz cover of the window seat, which was
decorated with little bunches of pink roses peeping through trellis.
This was in the nature of a bonus: she had not up till then connected
the chintz curtains with the little things that had fluttered down upon
her and were now safe in her glove; her only real object in this call
had been to instil a general uneasiness into Diva's mind about the coal
strike and the danger of being well provided with fuel. That she humbly
hoped that she had accomplished. She got up.

"Must be going," she said. "Such a lovely little chat! But what has
happened to your pretty curtains?"

"Gone to the wash," said Diva firmly.

"Liar," thought Miss Mapp, as she tripped downstairs. "Diva would have
sent the cover of the window-seat too, if that was the case. Liar," she
thought again as she kissed her hand to Diva, who was looking gloomily
out of the window.

       *       *       *       *       *

As soon as Miss Mapp had gained her garden-room, she examined the
mysterious treasures in her left-hand glove. Without the smallest doubt
Diva had taken down her curtains (and high time too, for they were sadly
shabby), and was cutting the roses out of them. But what on earth was
she doing that for? For what garish purpose could she want to use
bunches of roses cut out of chintz curtains?

Miss Mapp had put the two specimens of which she had providentially
become possessed in her lap, and they looked very pretty against the
navy-blue of her skirt. Diva was very ingenious: she used up all sorts
of odds and ends in a way that did credit to her undoubtedly
parsimonious qualities. She could trim a hat with a tooth-brush and a
banana in such a way that it looked quite Parisian till you firmly
analysed its component parts, and most of her ingenuity was devoted to
dress: the more was the pity that she had such a roundabout figure that
her waistband always reminded you of the equator....

"Eureka!" said Miss Mapp aloud, and, though the telephone bell was
ringing, and the postulant might be one of the servants' friends ringing
them up at an hour when their mistress was usually in the High Street,
she glided swiftly to the large cupboard underneath the stairs which was
full of the things which no right-minded person could bear to throw
away: broken basket-chairs, pieces of brown paper, cardboard boxes
without lids, and cardboard lids without boxes, old bags with holes in
them, keys without locks and locks without keys and worn chintz covers.
There was one--it had once adorned the sofa in the garden-room--covered
with red poppies (very easy to cut out), and Miss Mapp dragged it
dustily from its corner, setting in motion a perfect cascade of
cardboard lids and some door-handles.

Withers had answered the telephone, and came to announce that Twemlow
the grocer regretted he had only two large tins of corned beef, but----

"Then say I will have the tongue as well, Withers," said Miss Mapp.
"Just a tongue--and then I shall want you and Mary to do some cutting
out for me."

The three went to work with feverish energy, for Diva had got a start,
and by four o'clock that afternoon there were enough poppies cut out to
furnish, when in seed, a whole street of opium dens. The dress selected
for decoration was, apart from a few mildew-spots, the colour of ripe
corn, which was superbly appropriate for September. "Poppies in the
corn," said Miss Mapp over and over to herself, remembering some sweet
verses she had once read by Bernard Shaw or Clement Shorter or somebody
like that about a garden of sleep somewhere in Norfolk....

"No one can work as neatly as you, Withers," she said gaily, "and I
shall ask you to do the most difficult part. I want you to sew my lovely
poppies over the collar and facings of the jacket, just spacing them a
little and making a dainty irregularity. And then Mary--won't you,
Mary?--will do the same with the waistband while I put a border of them
round the skirt, and my dear old dress will look quite new and lovely. I
shall be at home to nobody, Withers, this afternoon, even if the Prince
of Wales came and sat on my doorstep again. We'll all work together in
the garden, shall we, and you and Mary must scold me if you think I'm
not working hard enough. It will be delicious in the garden."

Thanks to this pleasant plan, there was not much opportunity for Withers
and Mary to be idle....

       *       *       *       *       *

Just about the time that this harmonious party began their work, a far
from harmonious couple were being just as industrious in the grand
spacious bunker in front of the tee to the last hole on the golf links.
It was a beautiful bunker, consisting of a great slope of loose, steep
sand against the face of the hill, and solidly shored up with timber.
The Navy had been in better form to-day, and after a decisive victory
over the Army in the morning and an indemnity of half-a-crown, its match
in the afternoon, with just the last hole to play, was all square. So
Captain Puffin, having the honour, hit a low, nervous drive that tapped
loudly at the timbered wall of the bunker, and cuddled down below it,
well protected from any future assault.

"Phew! That about settles it," said Major Flint boisterously. "Bad place
to top a ball! Give me the hole?"

This insolent question needed no answer, and Major Flint drove, skying
the ball to a prodigious height. But it had to come to earth sometime,
and it fell like Lucifer, son of the morning, in the middle of the same
bunker.... So the Army played three more, and, sweating profusely, got
out. Then it was the Navy's turn, and the Navy had to lie on its keel
above the boards of the bunker, in order to reach its ball at all, and
missed it twice.

"Better give it up, old chap," said Major Flint. "Unplayable."

"Then see me play it," said Captain Puffin, with a chewing motion of his
jaws.

"We shall miss the tram," said the Major, and, with the intention of
giving annoyance, he sat down in the bunker with his back to Captain
Puffin, and lit a cigarette. At his third attempt nothing happened; at
the fourth the ball flew against the boards, rebounded briskly again
into the bunker, trickled down the steep, sandy slope and hit the
Major's boot.

"Hit you, I think," said Captain Puffin. "Ha! So it's my hole, Major!"

Major Flint had a short fit of aphasia. He opened and shut his mouth and
foamed. Then he took a half-crown from his pocket.

"Give that to the Captain," he said to his caddie, and without looking
round, walked away in the direction of the tram. He had not gone a
hundred yards when the whistle sounded, and it puffed away homewards
with ever-increasing velocity.

       *       *       *       *       *

Weak and trembling from passion, Major Flint found that after a few
tottering steps in the direction of Tilling he would be totally unable
to get there unless fortified by some strong stimulant, and turned back
to the Club-house to obtain it. He always went dead-lame when beaten at
golf, while Captain Puffin was lame in any circumstances, and the two,
no longer on speaking terms, hobbled into the Club-house, one after the
other, each unconscious of the other's presence. Summoning his last
remaining strength Major Flint roared for whisky, and was told that,
according to regulation, he could not be served until six. There was
lemonade and stone ginger-beer.... You might as well have offered a
man-eating tiger bread and milk. Even the threat that he would instantly
resign his membership unless provided with drink produced no effect on a
polite steward, and he sat down to recover as best he might with an old
volume of _Punch_. This seemed to do him little good. His forced
abstemiousness was rendered the more intolerable by the fact that
Captain Puffin, hobbling in immediately afterwards, fetched from his
locker a large flask full of the required elixir, and proceeded to mix
himself a long, strong tumblerful. After the Major's rudeness in the
matter of the half-crown, it was impossible for any sailor of spirit to
take the first step towards reconciliation.

Thirst is a great leveller. By the time the refreshed Puffin had
penetrated half-way down his glass, the Major found it impossible to be
proud and proper any longer. He hated saying he was sorry (no man more)
and wouldn't have been sorry if he had been able to get a drink. He
twirled his moustache a great many times and cleared his throat--it
wanted more than that to clear it--and capitulated.

"Upon my word, Puffin, I'm ashamed of myself for--ha!--for not taking my
defeat better," he said. "A man's no business to let a game ruffle him."

Puffin gave his alto cackling laugh.

"Oh, that's all right, Major," he said. "I know it's awfully hard to
lose like a gentleman."

He let this sink in, then added:

"Have a drink, old chap?"

Major Flint flew to his feet.

"Well, thank ye, thank ye," he said. "Now where's that soda water you
offered me just now?" he shouted to the steward.

The speed and completeness of the reconciliation was in no way
remarkable, for when two men quarrel whenever they meet, it follows that
they make it up again with corresponding frequency, else there could be
no fresh quarrels at all. This one had been a shade more acute than
most, and the drop into amity again was a shade more precipitous.

Major Flint in his eagerness had put most of his moustache into the
life-giving tumbler, and dried it on his handkerchief.

"After all, it was a most amusing incident," he said. "There was I with
my back turned, waiting for you to give it up, when your bl--wretched
little ball hit my foot. I must remember that. I'll serve you with the
same spoon some day, at least I would if I thought it sportsmanlike.
Well, well, enough said. Astonishing good whisky, that of yours."

Captain Puffin helped himself to rather more than half of what now
remained in the flask.

"Help yourself, Major," he said.

"Well, thank ye, I don't mind if I do," he said, reversing the flask
over the tumbler. "There's a good tramp in front of us now that the last
tram has gone. Tram and tramp! Upon my word, I've half a mind to
telephone for a taxi."

This, of course, was a direct hint. Puffin ought clearly to pay for a
taxi, having won two half-crowns to-day. This casual drink did not
constitute the usual drink stood by the winner, and paid for with cash
over the counter. A drink (or two) from a flask was not the same
thing.... Puffin naturally saw it in another light. He had paid for the
whisky which Major Flint had drunk (or owed for it) in his
wine-merchant's bill. That was money just as much as a florin pushed
across the counter. But he was so excessively pleased with himself over
the adroitness with which he had claimed the last hole, that he quite
overstepped the bounds of his habitual parsimony.

"Well, you trot along to the telephone and order a taxi," he said, "and
I'll pay for it."

"Done with you," said the other.

Their comradeship was now on its most felicitous level again, and they
sat on the bench outside the club-house till the arrival of their
unusual conveyance.

"Lunching at the Poppits' to-morrow?" asked Major Flint.

"Yes. Meet you there? Good. Bridge afterwards, suppose."

"Sure to be. Wish there was a chance of more red-currant fool. That was
a decent tipple, all but the red-currants. If I had had all the old
brandy that was served for my ration in one glass, and all the champagne
in another, I should have been better content."

Captain Puffin was a great cynic in his own misogynistic way.

"Camouflage for the fair sex," he said. "A woman will lick up half a
bottle of brandy if it's called plum-pudding, and ask for more, whereas
if you offered her a small brandy and soda, she would think you were
insulting her."

"Bless them, the funny little fairies," said the Major.

"Well, what I tell you is true, Major," said Puffin. "There's old Mapp.
Teetotaller she calls herself, but she played a bo'sun's part in that
red-currant fool. Bit rosy, I thought her, as we escorted her home."

"So she was," said the Major. "So she was. Said good-bye to us on her
doorstep as if she thought she was a perfect Venus Ana--Ana something."

"Anno Domini," giggled Puffin.

"Well, well, we all get long in the tooth in time," said Major Flint
charitably. "Fine figure of a woman, though."

"Eh?" said Puffin archly.

"Now none of your sailor-talk ashore, Captain," said the Major, in high
good humour. "I'm not a marrying man any more than you are. Better if I
had been perhaps, more years ago than I care to think about. Dear me,
my wound's going to trouble me to-night."

"What do you do for it, Major?" asked Puffin.

"Do for it? Think of old times a bit over my diaries."

"Going to let the world have a look at them some day?" asked Puffin.

"No, sir, I am not," said Major Flint. "Perhaps a hundred years
hence--the date I have named in my will for their publication--someone
may think them not so uninteresting. But all this toasting and buttering
and grilling and frying your friends, and serving them up hot for all
the old cats at a tea-table to mew over--Pah!"

Puffin was silent a moment in appreciation of these noble sentiments.

"But you put in a lot of work over them," he said at length. "Often when
I'm going up to bed, I see the light still burning in your sitting-room
window."

"And if it comes to that," rejoined the Major, "I'm sure I've often
dozed off when I'm in bed and woken again, and pulled up my blind, and
what not, and there's your light still burning. Powerful long roads
those old Romans must have made, Captain."

The ice was not broken, but it was cracking in all directions under this
unexampled thaw. The two had clearly indicated a mutual suspicion of
each other's industrious habits after dinner.... They had never got
quite so far as this before: some quarrel had congealed the surface
again. But now, with a desperate disagreement just behind them, and the
unusual luxury of a taxi just in front, the vernal airs continued
blowing in the most springlike manner.

"Yes, that's true enough," said Puffin. "Long roads they were, and dry
roads at that, and if I stuck to them from after my supper every
evening till midnight or more, should be smothered in dust."

"Unless you washed the dust down just once in a while," said Major
Flint.

"Just so. Brain-work's an exhausting process; requires a little
stimulant now and again," said Puffin. "I sit in my chair, you
understand, and perhaps doze for a bit after my supper, and then I'll
get my maps out, and have them handy beside me. And then, if there's
something interesting the evening paper, perhaps I'll have a look at it,
and bless me, if by that time it isn't already half-past ten or eleven,
and it seems useless to tackle archaeology then. And I just--just while
away the time till I'm sleepy. But there seems to be a sort of legend
among the ladies here, that I'm a great student of local topography and
Roman roads, and all sorts of truck, and I find it better to leave it at
that. Tiresome to go into long explanations. In fact," added Puffin in a
burst of confidence, "the study I've done on Roman roads these last six
months wouldn't cover a threepenny piece."

Major Flint gave a loud, choking guffaw and beat his fat leg.

"Well, if that's not the best joke I've heard for many a long day," he
said. "There I've been in the house opposite you these last two years,
seeing your light burning late night after night, and thinking to
myself, 'There's my friend Puffin still at it! Fine thing to be an
enthusiastic archaeologist like that. That makes short work of a lonely
evening for him if he's so buried in his books or his maps--Mapps, ha!
ha!--that he doesn't seem to notice whether it's twelve o'clock or one
or two, maybe!' And all the time you've been sitting snoozing and
boozing in your chair, with your glass handy to wash the dust down."

Puffin added his falsetto cackle to this merriment.

"And, often I've thought to myself," he said, "'There's my friend the
Major in his study opposite, with all his diaries round him, making a
note here, and copying an extract there, and conferring with the Viceroy
one day, and reprimanding the Maharajah of Bom-be-boo another. He's
spending the evening on India's coral strand, he is, having tiffin and
shooting tigers and Gawd knows what--'"

The Major's laughter boomed out again.

"And I never kept a diary in my life!" he cried. "Why there's enough
cream in this situation to make a dishful of meringues. You and I, you
know, the students of Tilling! The serious-minded students who do a hard
day's work when all the pretty ladies have gone to bed. Often and often
has old--I mean has that fine woman, Miss Mapp, told me that I work too
hard at night! Recommended me to get earlier to bed, and do my work
between six and eight in the morning! Six and eight in the morning!
That's a queer time of day to recommend an old campaigner to be awake
at! Often she's talked to you, too, I bet my hat, about sitting up late
and exhausting the nervous faculties."

Major Flint choked and laughed and inhaled tobacco smoke till he got
purple in the face.

"And you sitting up one side of the street," he gasped, "pretending to
be interested in Roman roads, and me on the other pulling a long face
over my diaries, and neither of us with a Roman road or a diary to our
names. Let's have an end to such unsociable arrangements, old friend;
you bring your Roman roads and the bottle to lay the dust over to me one
night, and I'll bring my diaries and my peg over to you the next. Never
drink alone--one of my maxims in life--if you can find someone to drink
with you. And there were you within a few yards of me all the time
sitting by your old solitary self, and there was I sitting by my old
solitary self, and we each thought the other a serious-minded old
buffer, busy on his life-work. I'm blessed if I heard of two such
pompous old frauds as you and I, Captain! What a sight of hypocrisy
there is in the world, to be sure! No offence--mind: I'm as bad as you,
and you're as bad as me, and we're both as bad as each other. But no
more solitary confinement of an evening for Benjamin Flint, as long as
you're agreeable."

The advent of the taxi was announced, and arm in arm they limped down
the steep path together to the road. A little way off to the left was
the great bunker which, primarily, was the cause of their present amity.
As they drove by it, the Major waggled his red hand at it.

"Au reservoir," he said. "Back again soon!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It was late that night when Miss Mapp felt that she was physically
incapable of tacking on a single poppy more to the edge of her skirt,
and went to the window of the garden-room where she had been working, to
close it. She glanced up at the top story of her own house, and saw that
the lights in the servants' rooms were out: she glanced to the right and
concluded that her gardener had gone to bed: finally, she glanced down
the street and saw with a pang of pleasure that the windows of the
Major's house showed no sign of midnight labour. This was intensely
gratifying: it indicated that her influence was at work in him, for in
response to her wish, so often and so tactfully urged on him, that he
would go to bed earlier and not work so hard at night, here was the
darkened window, and she dismissed as unworthy the suspicion which had
been aroused by the red-currant fool. The window of his bedroom was
dark too: he must have already put out his light, and Miss Mapp made
haste over her little tidyings so that she might not be found a
transgressor to her own precepts. But there was a light in Captain
Puffin's house: he had a less impressionable nature than the Major and
was in so many ways far inferior. And did he really find Roman roads so
wonderfully exhilarating? Miss Mapp sincerely hoped that he did, and
that it was nothing else of less pure and innocent allurement that kept
him up.... As she closed the window very gently, it did just seem to her
that there had been something equally baffling in Major Flint's
egoistical vigils over his diaries; that she had wondered whether there
was not something else (she had hardly formulated what) which kept his
lights burning so late. But she would now cross him--dear man--and his
late habits, out of the list of riddles about Tilling which awaited
solution. Whatever it had been (diaries or what not) that used to keep
him up, he had broken the habit now, whereas Captain Puffin had not. She
took her poppy-bordered skirt over her arm, and smiled her thankful way
to bed. She could allow herself to wonder with a little more
definiteness, now that the Major's lights were out and he was abed, what
it could be which rendered Captain Puffin so oblivious to the passage of
time, when he was investigating Roman roads. How glad she was that the
Major was not with him.... "Benjamin Flint!" she said to herself as,
having put her window open, she trod softly (so as not to disturb the
slumberer next door) across her room on her fat white feet to her big
white bed. "Good-night, Major Benjy," she whispered, as she put her
light out.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was not to be supposed that Diva would act on Miss Mapp's alarming
hints that morning as to the fate of coal-hoarders, and give, say, a
ton of fuel to the hospital at once, in lieu of her usual smaller
Christmas contribution, without making further inquiries in the proper
quarters as to the legal liabilities of having, so she ascertained,
three tons in her cellar, and as soon as her visitor had left her this
morning, she popped out to see Mr. Wootten, her coal-merchant. She
returned in a state of fury, for there were no regulations whatever in
existence with regard to the amount of coal that any householder might
choose to amass, and Mr. Wootten complimented her on her prudence in
having got in a reasonable supply, for he thought it quite probable
that, if the coal strike took place, there would be some difficulty in
month's time from now in replenishing cellars. "But we've had a good
supply all the summer," added agreeable Mr. Wootten, "and all my
customers have got their cellars well stocked."

Diva rapidly recollected that the perfidious Elizabeth was among them.

"O but, Mr. Wootten," she said, "Miss Mapp popped--dropped in to see me
just now. Told me she had hardly got any."

Mr. Wootten turned up his ledger. It was not etiquette to disclose the
affairs of one client to another, but if there was a cantankerous
customer, one who was never satisfied with prices and quality, that
client was Miss Mapp.... He allowed a broad grin to overspread his
agreeable face.

"Well, ma'am, if in a month's time I'm short of coal, there are friends
of yours in Tilling who can let you have plenty," he permitted himself
to say....

It was idle to attempt to cut out bunches of roses while her hand was so
feverish, and she trundled up and down the High Street to cool off. Had
she not been so prudent as to make inquiries, as likely as not she would
have sent a ton of coal that very day to the hospital, so strongly had
Elizabeth's perfidious warning inflamed her imagination as to the fate
of hoarders, and all the time Elizabeth's own cellars were glutted,
though she had asserted that she was almost fuelless. Why, she must have
in her possession more coal than Diva herself, since Mr. Wootten had
clearly implied that it was Elizabeth who could be borrowed from! And
all because of a wretched piece of rose-madder worsted....

By degrees she calmed down, for it was no use attempting to plan revenge
with a brain at fever-heat. She must be calm and icily ingenious. As the
cooling-process went on she began to wonder whether it was worsted alone
that had prompted her friend's diabolical suggestion. It seemed more
likely that another motive (one strangely Elizabethan) was the cause of
it. Elizabeth might be taken for certain as being a coal-hoarder
herself, and it was ever so like her to divert suspicion by pretending
her cellar was next to empty. She had been equally severe on any who
might happen to be hoarding food, in case transport was disarranged and
supplies fell short, and with a sudden flare of authentic intuition,
Diva's mind blazed with the conjecture that Elizabeth was hoarding food
as well.

Luck ever attends the bold and constructive thinker: the apple, for
instance, fell from the tree precisely when Newton's mind was groping
after the law of gravity, and as Diva stepped into her grocer's to begin
her morning's shopping (for she had been occupied with roses ever since
breakfast) the attendant was at the telephone at the back of the shop.
He spoke in a lucid telephone-voice.

"We've only two of the big tins of corned beef," he said; and there was
a pause, during which, to a psychic, Diva's ears might have seemed to
grow as pointed with attention as a satyr's. But she could only hear
little hollow quacks from the other end.

"Tongue as well. Very good. I'll send them up at once," he added, and
came forward into the shop.

"Good morning," said Diva. Her voice was tremulous with anxiety and
investigation. "Got any big tins of corned beef? The ones that contain
six pounds."

"Very sorry, ma'am. We've only got two, and they've just been ordered."

"A small pot of ginger then, please," said Diva recklessly. "Will you
send it round immediately?"

"Yes, ma'am. The boy's just going out."

That was luck. Diva hurried into the street, and was absorbed by the
headlines of the news outside the stationer's. This was a favourite
place for observation, for you appeared to be quite taken up by the
topics of the day, and kept an oblique eye on the true object of your
scrutiny.... She had not got to wait long, for almost immediately the
grocer's boy came out of the shop with a heavy basket on his arm,
delivered the small pot of ginger at her own door, and proceeded along
the street. He was, unfortunately, a popular and a conversational youth,
who had a great deal to say to his friends, and the period of waiting to
see if he would turn up the steep street that led to Miss Mapp's house
was very protracted. At the corner he deliberately put down the basket
altogether and lit a cigarette, and never had Diva so acutely deplored
the spread of the tobacco-habit among the juvenile population.

Having refreshed himself he turned up the steep street.

He passed the fishmonger's and the fruiterer's; he did not take the turn
down to the dentist's and Mr. Wyse's. He had no errand to the Major's
house or to the Captain's. Then, oh then, he rang the bell at Miss
Mapp's back door. All the time Diva had been following him, keeping her
head well down so as to avert the possibility of observation from the
window of the garden-room, and walking so slowly that the motion of her
feet seemed not circular at all.... Then the bell was answered, and he
delivered into Withers' hands one, two tins of corned beef and a round
ox-tongue. He put the basket on his head and came down the street again,
shrilly whistling. If Diva had had any reasonably small change in her
pocket, she would assuredly have given him some small share in it.
Lacking this, she trundled home with all speed, and began cutting out
roses with swift and certain strokes of the nail-scissors.

Now she had already noticed that Elizabeth had paid visits to the
grocer's on three consecutive days (three consecutive days: think of
it!), and given that her purchases on other occasions had been on the
same substantial scale as to-day, it became a matter of thrilling
interest as to where she kept these stores. She could not keep them in
the coal cellar, for that was already bursting with coal, and Diva, who
had assisted her (the base one) in making a prodigious quantity of jam
that year from her well-stocked garden, was aware that the kitchen
cupboards were like to be as replete as the coal-cellar, before those
hoardings of dead oxen began. Then there was the big cupboard under the
stairs, but that could scarcely be the site of this prodigious cache,
for it was full of cardboard and curtains and carpets and all the
rubbishy accumulations which Elizabeth could not bear to part with. Then
she had large cupboards in her bedroom and spare rooms full to
overflowing of mouldy clothes, but there was positively not another
cupboard in the house that Diva knew of, and she crushed her temples in
her hands in the attempt to locate the hiding-place of the hoard.

Diva suddenly jumped up with a happy squeal of discovery, and in her
excitement snapped her scissors with so random a stroke that she
completely cut in half the bunch of roses that she was engaged on. There
was another cupboard, the best and biggest of all and the most secret
and the most discreet. It lay embedded in the wall of the garden-room,
cloaked and concealed behind the shelves of a false book-case, which
contained no more than the simulacra of books, just books with titles
that had never yet appeared on any honest book. There were twelve
volumes of "The Beauties of Nature," a shelf full of "Elegant Extracts,"
there were volumes simply called "Poems," there were "Commentaries,"
there were "Travels" and "Astronomy" and the lowest and tallest shelf
was full of "Music." A card-table habitually stood in front of this
false repository of learning, and it was only last week that Diva, prying
casually round the room while Elizabeth had gone to take off her
gardening-gloves, had noticed a modest catch let into the wood-work.
Without doubt, then, the book-case was the door of the cupboard, and
with a stroke of intuition, too sure to be called a guess, Diva was
aware that she had correctly inferred the storage of this nefarious
hoard. It only remained to verify her conclusion, and, if possible,
expose it with every circumstance of public ignominy. She was in no
hurry: she could bide her time, aware that, in all probability, every
day that passed would see an addition to its damning contents. Some day,
when she was playing bridge and the card-table had been moved out, in
some rubber when she herself was dummy and Elizabeth greedily playing
the hand, she would secretly and accidentally press the catch which her
acute vision had so providentially revealed to her....

She attacked her chintz curtains again with her appetite for the pink
roses agreeably whetted. Another hour's work would give her sufficient
bunches for her purpose, and unless the dyer was as perfidious as
Elizabeth, her now purple jacket and skirt would arrive that afternoon.
Two days' hard work would be sufficient for so accomplished a
needlewoman as herself to make these original decorations.

In the meantime, for Diva was never idle, and was chiefly occupied with
dress, she got out a certain American fashion paper. There was in it the
description of a tea-gown worn by Mrs. Titus W. Trout which she believed
was within her dressmaking capacity. She would attempt it, anyhow, and
if it proved to be beyond her, she could entrust the more difficult
parts to that little dressmaker whom Elizabeth employed, and who was
certainly very capable. But the costume was of so daring and splendid a
nature that she feared to take anyone into her confidence about it, lest
some hint or gossip--for Tilling was a gossipy place--might leak out.
Kingfisher blue! It made her mouth water to dwell on the sumptuous
syllables!

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mapp was so feverishly occupied all next morning with the
application of poppies to the corn-coloured skirt that she paid very
little attention to the opening gambits of the day, either as regards
the world in general, or, more particularly, Major Benjy. After his
early retirement last night he was probably up with the lark this
morning, and when between half-past ten and eleven his sonorous
"Qui-hi!" sounded through her open window, the shock she experienced
interrupted for a moment her floral industry. It was certainly very odd
that, having gone to bed at so respectable an hour last night, he should
be calling for his porridge only now, but with an impulse of unusual
optimism, she figured him as having been at work on his diaries before
breakfast, and in that absorbing occupation having forgotten how late it
was growing. That, no doubt, was the explanation, though it would be
nice to know for certain, if the information positively forced itself on
her notice.... As she worked, (framing her lips with elaborate motions
to the syllables) she dumbly practised the phrase "Major Benjy."
Sometimes in moments of gallantry he called her "Miss Elizabeth," and
she meant, when she had got accustomed to it by practice, to say "Major
Benjy" to him by accident, and he would, no doubt, beg her to make a
habit of that friendly slip of the tongue.... "Tongue" led to a new
train of thought, and presently she paused in her work, and pulling the
card-table away from the deceptive book-case, she pressed the concealed
catch of the door, and peeped in.

There was still room for further small precautions against starvation
owing to the impending coal-strike, and she took stock of her
provisions. Even if the strike lasted quite a long time, there would now
be no immediate lack of the necessaries of life, for the cupboard
glistened with tinned meats, and the flour-merchant had sent a very
sensible sack. This with considerable exertion she transferred to a high
shelf in the cupboard, instead of allowing it to remain standing on the
floor, for Withers had informed her of an unpleasant rumour about a
mouse, which Mary had observed, lost in thought in front of the
cupboard. "So mousie shall only find tins on the floor now," thought
Miss Mapp. "Mousie shall try his teeth on tins." ... There was tea and
coffee in abundance, jars of jam filled the kitchen shelves, and if this
morning she laid in a moderate supply of dried fruits, there was no
reason to face the future with anything but fortitude. She would see
about that now, for, busy though she was, she could not miss the
shopping-parade. Would Diva, she wondered, be at her window, snipping
roses out of chintz curtains? The careful, thrifty soul. Perhaps this
time to-morrow, Diva, looking out of her window, would see that somebody
else had been quicker about being thrifty than she. That would be fun!

The Major's dining-room window was open, and as Miss Mapp passed it, she
could not help hearing loud, angry remarks about eggs coming from
inside. That made it clear that he was still at breakfast, and that if
he had been working at his diaries in the fresh morning hours and
forgetting the time, early rising, in spite of his early retirement last
night, could not be supposed to suit his Oriental temper. But a change
of habits was invariably known to be upsetting, and Miss Mapp was
hopeful that in a day or two he would feel quite a different man.
Further down the street was quaint Irene lounging at the door of her new
studio (a converted coach-house), smoking a cigarette and dressed like a
jockey.

"Hullo, Mapp," she said. "Come and have a look round my new studio. You
haven't seen it yet. I shall give a house-warming next week.
Bridge-party!"

Miss Mapp tried to steel herself for the hundredth time to appear quite
unconscious that she was being addressed when Irene said "Mapp" in that
odious manner. But she never could summon up sufficient nerve to be rude
to so awful a mimic....

"Good morning, dear one," she said sycophantically. "Shall I peep in for
a moment?"

The decoration of the studio was even more appalling than might have
been expected. There was a German stove in the corner made of pink
porcelain, the rafters and roof were painted scarlet, the walls were of
magenta distemper and the floor was blue. In the corner was a very
large orange-coloured screen. The walls were hung with specimens of
Irene's art, there was a stout female with no clothes on at all, whom it
was impossible not to recognize as being Lucy; there were studies of fat
legs and ample bosoms, and on the easel was a picture, evidently in
process of completion, which represented a man. From this Miss Mapp
instantly averted her eyes.

"Eve," said Irene, pointing to Lucy.

Miss Mapp naturally guessed that the gentleman who was almost in the
same costume was Adam, and turned completely away from him.

"And what a lovely idea to have a blue floor, dear," she said. "How
original you are. And that pretty scarlet ceiling. But don't you find
when you're painting that all these bright colours disturb you?"

"Not a bit: they stimulate your sense of colour."

Miss Mapp moved towards the screen.

"What a delicious big screen," she said.

"Yes, but don't go behind it, Mapp," said Irene, "or you'll see my model
undressing."

Miss Mapp retreated from it precipitately, as from a wasp's nest, and
examined some of the studies on the wall, for it was more than probable
from the unfinished picture on the easel that Adam lurked behind the
delicious screen. Terrible though it all was, she was conscious of an
unbridled curiosity to know who Adam was. It was dreadful to think that
there could be any man in Tilling so depraved as to stand to be looked
at with so little on....

Irene strolled round the walls with her.

"Studies of Lucy," she said.

"I see, dear," said Miss Mapp. "How clever! Legs and things! But when
you have your bridge-party, won't you perhaps cover some of them up, or
turn them to the wall? We should all be looking at your pictures instead
of attending to our cards. And if you were thinking of asking the Padre,
you know...."

They were approaching the corner of the room where the screen stood,
when a movement there as if Adam had hit it with his elbow made Miss
Mapp turn round. The screen fell flat on the ground and within a yard of
her stood Mr. Hopkins, the proprietor of the fish-shop just up the
street. Often and often had Miss Mapp had pleasant little conversations
with him, with a view to bringing down the price of flounders. He had
little bathing-drawers on....

"Hullo, Hopkins, are you ready?" said Irene. "You know Miss Mapp, don't
you?"

Miss Mapp had not imagined that Time and Eternity combined could hold so
embarrassing a moment. She did not know where to look, but wherever she
looked, it should not be at Hopkins. But (wherever she looked) she could
not be unaware that Hopkins raised his large bare arm and touched the
place where his cap would have been, if he had had one.

"Good-morning, Hopkins," she said. "Well, Irene darling, I must be
trotting, and leave you to your----" she hardly knew what to call
it--"to your work."

She tripped from the room, which seemed to be entirely full of unclothed
limbs, and redder than one of Mr. Hopkins's boiled lobsters hurried down
the street. She felt that she could never face him again, but would be
obliged to go to the establishment in the High Street where Irene dealt,
when it was fish she wanted from a fish-shop.... Her head was in a whirl
at the brazenness of mankind, especially womankind. How had Irene
started the overtures that led to this? Had she just said to Hopkins
one morning: "Will you come to my studio and take off all your clothes?"
If Irene had not been such a wonderful mimic, she would certainly have
felt it her duty to go straight to the Padre, and, pulling down her
veil, confide to him the whole sad story. But as that was out of the
question, she went into Twenlow's and ordered four pounds of dried
apricots.




CHAPTER IV


The dyer, as Diva had feared, proved perfidious, and it was not till the
next morning that her maid brought her the parcel containing the coat
and skirt of the projected costume. Diva had already done her marketing,
so that she might have no other calls on her time to interfere with the
tacking on of the bunches of pink roses, and she hoped to have the dress
finished in time for Elizabeth's afternoon bridge-party next day, an
invitation to which had just reached her. She had also settled to have a
cold lunch to-day, so that her cook as well as her parlourmaid could
devote themselves to the job.

She herself had taken the jacket for decoration, and was just tacking
the first rose on to the collar, when she looked out of the window, and
what she saw caused her needle to fall from her nerveless hand. Tripping
along the opposite pavement was Elizabeth. She had on a dress, the
material of which, after a moment's gaze, Diva identified: it was that
corn-coloured coat and skirt which she had worn so much last spring. But
the collar, the cuffs, the waistband and the hem of the skirt were
covered with staring red poppies. Next moment, she called to remembrance
the chintz that had once covered Elizabeth's sofa in the garden-room.

Diva wasted no time, but rang the bell. She had to make certain.

"Janet," she said, "go straight out into the High Street, and walk close
behind Miss Mapp. Look very carefully at her dress; see if the poppies
on it are of chintz."

Janet's face fell.

"Why, ma'am, she's never gone and----" she began.

"Quick!" said Diva in a strangled voice.

Diva watched from her window. Janet went out, looked this way and that,
spied the quarry, and skimmed up the High Street on feet that twinkled
as fast as her mistress's. She came back much out of breath with speed
and indignation.

"Yes, ma'am," she said. "They're chintz sure enough. Tacked on, too,
just as you were meaning to do. Oh, ma'am----"

Janet quite appreciated the magnitude of the calamity and her voice
failed.

"What are we to do, ma'am?" she added.

Diva did not reply for a moment, but sat with eyes closed in profound
and concentrated thought. It required no reflection to decide how
impossible it was to appear herself to-morrow in a dress which seemed to
ape the costume which all Tilling had seen Elizabeth wearing to-day, and
at first it looked as if there was nothing to be done with all those
laboriously acquired bunches of rosebuds; for it was clearly out of the
question to use them as the decoration for any costume, and idle to
think of sewing them back into the snipped and gashed curtains. She
looked at the purple skirt and coat that hungered for their flowers, and
then she looked at Janet. Janet was a short, roundabout person; it was
ill-naturedly supposed that she had much the same figure as her
mistress....

Then the light broke, dazzling and diabolical, and Diva bounced to her
feet, blinded by its splendour.

"My coat and skirt are yours, Janet," she said. "Get with the work both
of you. Bustle. Cover it with roses. Have it finished to-night. Wear it
to-morrow. Wear it always."

She gave a loud cackle of laughter and threaded her needle.

"Lor, ma'am!" said Janet, admiringly. "That's a teaser! And thank you,
ma'am!"

"It was roses, roses all the way." Diva had quite miscalculated the
number required, and there were sufficient not only to cover collar,
cuffs and border of the skirt with them but to make another line of them
six inches above the hem. Original and gorgeous as the dress would be,
it was yet a sort of parody of Elizabeth's costume which was attracting
so much interest and attention as she popped in and out of shops to-day.
To-morrow that would be worn by Janet, and Janet (or Diva was much
mistaken) should encourage her friends to get permission to use up old
bits of chintz. Very likely chintz decoration would become quite a vogue
among the servant maids of Tilling.... How Elizabeth had got hold of the
idea mattered nothing, but anyhow she would be surfeited with the idea
before Diva had finished with her. It was possible, of course (anything
was possible), that it had occurred to her independently, but Diva was
loath to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far
more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's
invention by some odious, underhand piece of spying. What that might be
must be investigated (and probably determined) later, but at present the
business of Janet's roses eclipsed every other interest.

Miss Mapp's shopping that morning was unusually prolonged, for it was
important that every woman in Tilling should see the poppies on the
corn-coloured ground, and know that she had worn that dress before Diva
appeared in some mean adaptation of it. Though the total cost of her
entire purchases hardly amounted to a shilling, she went in and out of
an amazing number of shops, and made a prodigious series of inquiries
into the price of commodities that ranged from motor-cars to
sealing-wax, and often entered a shop twice because (wreathed in smiling
apologies for her stupidity) she had forgotten what she was told the
first time. By twelve o'clock she was satisfied that practically
everybody, with one exception, had seen her, and that her costume had
aroused a deep sense of jealousy and angry admiration. So cunning was
the handiwork of herself, Withers and Mary that she felt fairly sure
that no one had the slightest notion of how this decoration of poppies
was accomplished, for Evie had run round her in small mouse-like
circles, murmuring to herself: "Very effective idea; is it woven into
the cloth, Elizabeth? Dear me, I wonder where I could get some like it,"
and Mrs. Poppit had followed her all up the street, with eyes glued to
the hem of her skirt, and a completely puzzled face: "but then," so
thought Elizabeth sweetly "even members of the Order of the British
Empire can't have everything their own way." As for the Major, he had
simply come to a dead stop when he bounced out of his house as she
passed, and said something very gallant and appropriate. Even the
absence of that one inhabitant of Tilling, dear Diva, did not strike a
jarring note in this paean of triumph, for Miss Mapp was quite satisfied
that Diva was busy indoors, working her fingers to the bone over the
application of bunches of roses, and, as usual, she was perfectly
correct in her conjecture. But dear Diva would have to see the new
frock to-morrow afternoon, at the latest, when she came to the
bridge-party. Perhaps she would then, for the first time, be wearing the
roses herself, and everybody would very pleasantly pity her. This was so
rapturous a thought, that when Miss Mapp, after her prolonged shopping
and with her almost empty basket, passed Mr. Hopkins standing outside
his shop on her return home again, she gave him her usual smile, though
without meeting his eye, and tried to forget how much of him she had
seen yesterday. Perhaps she might speak to him to-morrow and gradually
resume ordinary relations, for the prices at the other fish shop were as
high as the quality of the fish was low.... She told herself that there
was nothing actually immoral in the human skin, however embarrassing it
was.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the
triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major
Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it
was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear
himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to
bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late;
indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window
was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed,
and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad."
On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a
tin of biscuits and two jars of bovril to her prudent stores, she found
herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps)
were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than
archaeology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman
roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was
her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know
what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of
drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it
was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman
roads with it. With her vivid imagination she pictured him----

Miss Mapp recalled herself from this melancholy reflection and put up
her hand just in time to save a bottle of bovril which she had put on
the top shelf in front of the sack of flour from tumbling to the ground.
With the latest additions she had made to her larder, it required
considerable ingenuity to fit all the tins and packages in, and for a
while she diverted her mind from Captain Puffin's drinking to her own
eating. But by careful packing and balancing she managed to stow
everything away with sufficient economy of space to allow her to shut
the door, and then put the card-table in place again. It was then late,
and with a fond look at her sweet flowers sleeping in the moonlight, she
went to bed. Captain Puffin's sitting-room was still alight, and even as
she deplored this, his shadow in profile crossed the blind. Shadows were
queer things--she could make a beautiful shadow-rabbit on the wall by a
dexterous interlacement of fingers and thumbs--and certainly this
shadow, in the momentary glance she had of it, appeared to have a large
moustache. She could make nothing whatever out of that, except to
suppose that just as fingers and thumbs became a rabbit, so his nose
became a moustache, for he could not have grown one since he came back
from golf....

       *       *       *       *       *

She was out early for her shopping next morning, for there were some
delicacies to be purchased for her bridge-party, more particularly some
little chocolate cakes she had lately discovered which looked very small
and innocent, were in reality of so cloying and substantial a nature,
that the partaker thereof would probably not feel capable of making any
serious inroads into other provisions. Naturally she was much on the
alert to-day, for it was more than possible that Diva's dress was
finished and in evidence. What colour it would be she did not know, but
a large quantity of rosebuds would, even at a distance, make
identification easy. Diva was certainly not at her window this morning,
so it seemed more than probable that they would soon meet.

Far away, just crossing the High Street at the further end, she caught
sight of a bright patch of purple, very much of the required shape.
There was surely a pink border round the skirt and a pink panel on the
collar, and just as surely Mrs. Bartlett, recognizable for her gliding
mouse-like walk, was moving in its fascinating wake. Then the purple
patch vanished into a shop, and Miss Mapp, all smiles and poppies, went
with her basket up the street. Presently she encountered Evie, who, also
all smiles, seemed to have some communication to make, but only got as
far as "Have you seen"--when she gave a little squeal of laughter, quite
inexplicable, and glided into some dark entry. A minute afterwards, the
purple patch suddenly appeared from a shop and almost collided with her.
It was not Diva at all, but Diva's Janet.

The shock was so indescribably severe that Miss Mapp's smile was frozen,
so to speak, as by some sudden congealment on to her face, and did not
thaw off it till she had reached the sharp turn at the end of the
street, where she leaned heavily on the railing and breathed through
her nose. A light autumnal mist overlay the miles of marsh, but the sun
was already drinking it up, promising the Tillingites another golden
day. The tidal river was at the flood, and the bright water lapped the
bases of the turf-covered banks that kept it within its course. Beyond
that was the tram-station towards which presently Major Benjy and
Captain Puffin would be hurrying to catch the tram that would take them
out to the golf links. The straight road across the marsh was visible,
and the railway bridge. All these things were pitilessly unchanged, and
Miss Mapp noted them blankly, until rage began to restore the numbed
current of her mental processes.

       *       *       *       *       *

If the records of history contained any similar instance of such
treachery and low cunning as was involved in this plot of Diva's to
dress Janet in the rosebud chintz, Miss Mapp would have liked to be told
clearly and distinctly what it was. She could trace the workings of
Diva's base mind with absolute accuracy, and if all the archangels in
the hierarchy of heaven had assured her that Diva had originally
intended the rosebuds for Janet, she would have scorned them for their
clumsy perjury. Diva had designed and executed that dress for herself,
and just because Miss Mapp's ingenuity (inspired by the two rosebuds
that had fluttered out of the window) had forestalled her, she had taken
this fiendish revenge. It was impossible to pervade the High Street
covered with chintz poppies when a parlourmaid was being equally
pervasive in chintz rosebuds, and what was to be done with this frock
executed with such mirth and malice by Withers, Mary and herself she had
no idea. She might just as well give it Withers, for she could no longer
wear it herself, or tear the poppies from the hem and bestrew the High
Street with them.... Miss Mapp's face froze into immobility again, for
here, trundling swiftly towards her, was Diva herself.

Diva appeared not to see her till she got quite close.

"Morning, Elizabeth," she said. "Seen my Janet anywhere?"

"No," said Miss Mapp.

Janet (no doubt according to instructions received) popped out of a
shop, and came towards her mistress.

"Here she is," said Diva. "All right, Janet. You go home. I'll see to
the other things."

"It's a lovely day," said Miss Mapp, beginning to lash her tail. "So
bright."

"Yes. Pretty trimming of poppies," said Diva. "Janet's got rosebuds."

This was too much.

"Diva, I didn't think it of you," said Miss Mapp in a shaking voice.
"You saw my new frock yesterday, and you were filled with malice and
envy, Diva, just because I had thought of using flowers off an old
chintz as well as you, and came out first with it. You had meant to wear
that purple frock yourself--though I must say it fits Janet
perfectly--and just because I was first in the field you did this. You
gave Janet that frock, so that I should be dressed in the same style as
your parlourmaid, and you've got a black heart, Diva!"

"That's nonsense," said Diva firmly. "Heart's as red as anybody's, and
talking of black hearts doesn't become _you_, Elizabeth. You knew I was
cutting out roses from my curtains----"

Miss Mapp laughed shrilly.

"Well, if I happen to notice that you've taken your chintz curtains
down," she said with an awful distinctness that showed the wisdom-teeth
of which Diva had got three at the most, "and pink bunches of roses
come flying out of your window into the High Street, even my poor wits,
small as they are, are equal to drawing the conclusion that you are
cutting roses out of curtains. Your well-known fondness for dress did
the rest. With your permission, Diva, I intend to draw exactly what
conclusions I please on every occasion, including this one."

"Ho! That's how you got the idea then," said Diva. "I knew you had
cribbed it from me."

"Cribbed?" asked Miss Mapp, in ironical ignorance of what so vulgar and
slangy an expression meant.

"Cribbed means taking what isn't yours," said Diva. "Even then, if you
had only acted in a straightforward manner----"

Miss Mapp, shaken as with palsy, regretted that she had let slip, out of
pure childlike joy, in irony, the manner in which she had obtained the
poppy-notion, but in a quarrel regrets are useless, and she went on
again.

"And would you very kindly explain how or when I have acted in a manner
that was not straightforward," she asked with laborious politeness. "Or
do I understand that a monopoly of cutting up chintz curtains for
personal adornment has been bestowed on you by Act of Parliament?"

"You knew I was meaning to make a frock with chintz roses on it," said
Diva. "You stole my idea. Worked night and day to be first. Just like
you. Mean behaviour."

"It was meaner to give that frock to Janet," said Miss Mapp.

"You can give yours to Withers," snapped Diva.

"Much obliged, Mrs. Plaistow," said Miss Mapp.

       *       *       *       *       *

Diva had been watching Janet's retreating figure, and feeling that
though revenge was sweet, revenge was also strangely expensive, for she
had sacrificed one of the most strikingly successful frocks she had ever
made on that smoking altar. Now her revenge was gratified, and deeply
she regretted the frock. Miss Mapp's heart was similarly wrung by
torture: revenge too had been hers (general revenge on Diva for
existing), but this dreadful counter-stroke had made it quite impossible
for her to enjoy the use of this frock any more, for she could not habit
herself like a housemaid. Each, in fact, had, as matters at present
stood, completely wrecked the other, like two express trains meeting in
top-speed collision, and, since the quarrel had clearly risen to its
utmost height, there was no farther joy of battle to be anticipated, but
only the melancholy task of counting the corpses. So they paused,
breathing very quickly and trembling, while both sought for some way
out. Besides Miss Mapp had a bridge-party this afternoon, and if they
parted now in this extreme state of tension, Diva might conceivably not
come, thereby robbing herself of her bridge and spoiling her hostess's
table. Naturally any permanent quarrel was not contemplated by either of
them, for if quarrels were permanent in Tilling, nobody would be on
speaking terms any more with anyone else in a day or two, and (hardly
less disastrous) there could be no fresh quarrels with anybody, since
you could not quarrel without words. There might be songs without words,
as Mendelssohn had proved, but not rows without words. By what formula
could this deadly antagonism be bridged without delay?

Diva gazed out over the marsh. She wanted desperately to regain her
rosebud-frock, and she knew that Elizabeth was starving for further
wearing of her poppies. Perhaps the wide, serene plain below inspired
her with a hatred of littleness. There would be no loss of dignity in
making a proposal that her enemy, she felt sure, would accept: it merely
showed a Christian spirit, and set an example to Elizabeth, to make the
first move. Janet she did not consider.

"If you are in a fit state to listen to reason, Elizabeth," she began.

Miss Mapp heaved a sigh of relief. Diva had thought of something. She
swallowed the insult at a gulp.

"Yes, dear," she said.

"Got an idea. Take away Janet's frock, and wear it myself. Then you can
wear yours. Too pretty for parlour-maids. Eh?"

A heavenly brightness spread over Miss Mapp's face.

"Oh, how wonderful of you to have thought of that, Diva," she said. "But
how shall we explain it all to everybody?"

Diva clung to her rights. Though clearly Christian, she was human.

"Say I thought of tacking chintz on and told you," she said.

"Yes, darling," said Elizabeth. "That's beautiful, I agree. But poor
Janet!"

"I'll give her some other old thing," said Diva. "Good sort, Janet.
Wants me to win."

"And about her having been seen wearing it?"

"Say she hasn't ever worn it. Say they're mad," said Diva.

Miss Mapp felt it better to tear herself away before she began
distilling all sorts of acidities that welled up in her fruitful mind.
She could, for instance, easily have agreed that nothing was more
probable than that Janet had been mistaken for her mistress....

"Au reservoir then, dear," she said tenderly. "See you at about four?
And will you wear your pretty rosebud frock?"

This was agreed to, and Diva went home to take it away from Janet.

       *       *       *       *       *

The reconciliation of course was strictly confined to matters relating
to chintz and did not include such extraneous subjects as coal-strike or
food-hoarding, and even in the first glowing moments of restored
friendliness, Diva began wondering whether she would have the
opportunity that afternoon of testing the truth of her conjecture about
the cupboard in the garden-room. Cudgel her brains as she might she
could think of no other _cache_ that could contain the immense amount of
provisions that Elizabeth had probably accumulated, and she was all on
fire to get to practical grips with the problem. As far as tins of
corned beef and tongues went, Elizabeth might possibly have buried them
in her garden in the manner of a dog, but it was not likely that a
hoarder would limit herself to things in tins. No: there was a cupboard
somewhere ready to burst with strong supporting foods....

Diva intentionally arrived a full quarter of an hour on the hither side
of punctuality, and was taken by Withers out into the garden-room, where
tea was laid, and two card-tables were in readiness. She was, of course,
the first of the guests, and the moment Withers withdrew to tell her
mistress that she had come, Diva stealthily glided to the cupboard, from
in front of which the bridge-table had been removed, feeling the shrill
joy of some romantic treasure hunter. She found the catch, she pressed
it, she pulled open the door and the whole of the damning profusion of
provisions burst upon her delighted eyes. Shelf after shelf was crowded
with eatables; there were tins of corned beef and tongues (that she knew
already), there was a sack of flour, there were tubes of Bath Oliver
biscuits, bottles of bovril, the yield of a thousand condensed Swiss
cows, jars of prunes.... All these were in the front row, flush with the
door, and who knew to what depth the cupboard extended? Even as she
feasted her eyes on this incredible store, some package on the top shelf
wavered and toppled, and she had only just time to shut the door again,
in order to prevent it falling out on to the floor. But this
displacement prevented the door from wholly closing, and push and shove
as Diva might, she could not get the catch to click home, and the only
result of her energy and efforts was to give rise to a muffled explosion
from within, just precisely as if something made of cardboard had burst.
That mental image was so vivid that to her fevered imagination it seemed
to be real. This was followed by certain faint taps from within against
"Elegant Extracts" and "Astronomy."

Diva grew very red in the face, and said "Drat it" under her breath. She
did not dare open the door again in order to push things back, for fear
of an uncontrollable stream of "things" pouring out. Some nicely
balanced equilibrium had clearly been upset in those capacious shelves,
and it was impossible to tell, without looking, how deep and how
extensive the disturbance was. And in order to look, she had to open the
bookcase again.... Luckily the pressure against the door was not
sufficiently heavy to cause it to swing wide, so the best she could do
was to leave it just ajar with temporary quiescence inside.
Simultaneously she heard Miss Mapp's step, and had no more than time to
trundle at the utmost speed of her whirling feet across to the window,
where she stood looking out, and appeared quite unconscious of her
hostess's entry.

"Diva darling, how sweet of you to come so early!" she said. "A little
cosy chat before the others arrive."

Diva turned round, much startled.

"Hullo!" she said. "Didn't hear you. Got Janet's frock you see."

("What makes Diva's face so red?" thought Miss Mapp.)

"So I see, darling," she said. "Lovely rose-garden. How well it suits
you, dear! Did Janet mind?"

"No. Promised her a new frock at Christmas."

"That will be nice for Janet," said Elizabeth enthusiastically. "Shall
we pop into the garden, dear, till my guests come?"

Diva was glad to pop into the garden and get away from the immediate
vicinity of the cupboard, for though she had planned and looked forward
to the exposure of Elizabeth's hoarding, she had not meant it to come,
as it now probably would, in crashes of tins and bursting of bovril
bottles. Again she had intended to have opened that door quite casually
and innocently while she was being dummy, so that everyone could see how
accidental the exposure was, and to have gone poking about the cupboard
in Elizabeth's absence was a shade too professional, so to speak, for
the usual detective work of Tilling. But the fuse was set now. Sooner or
later the explosion must come. She wondered as they went out to commune
with Elizabeth's sweet flowers till the other guests arrived how great a
torrent would be let loose. She did not repent her exploration--far from
it--but her pleasurable anticipations were strongly diluted with
suspense.

Miss Mapp had found such difficulty in getting eight players together
to-day, that she had transgressed her principles and asked Mrs. Poppit
as well as Isabel, and they, with Diva, the two Bartletts, and the Major
and the Captain, formed the party. The moment Mrs. Poppit appeared,
Elizabeth hated her more than ever, for she put up her glasses, and
began to give her patronizing advice about her garden, which she had not
been allowed to see before.

"You have quite a pretty little piece of garden, Miss Mapp," she said,
"though, to be sure, I fancied from what you said that it was more
extensive. Dear me, your roses do not seem to be doing very well.
Probably they are old plants and want renewing. You must send your
gardener round--you keep a gardener?--and I will let you have a dozen
vigorous young bushes."

Miss Mapp licked her dry lips. She kept a kind of gardener: two days a
week.

"Too good of you," she said, "but that rose-bed is quite sacred, dear
Mrs. Poppit. Not all the vigorous young bushes in the world would tempt
me. It's my 'Friendship's Border:' some dear friend gave me each of my
rose-trees."

Mrs. Poppit transferred her gaze to the wistaria that grew over the
steps up to the garden-room. Some of the dear friends she thought must
be centenarians.

"Your wistaria wants pruning sadly," she said. "Your gardener does not
understand wistarias. That corner there was made, I may say, for
fuchsias. You should get a dozen choice fuchsias."

Miss Mapp laughed.

"Oh, you must excuse me," she said with a glance at Mrs. Poppit's
brocaded silk. "I can't bear fuchsias. They always remind me of
over-dressed women. Ah, there's Mr. Bartlett. How de do, Padre. And dear
Evie!"

Dear Evie appeared fascinated by Diva's dress.

"Such beautiful rosebuds," she murmured, "and what lovely shade of
purple. And Elizabeth's poppies too, quite a pair of you. But surely
this morning, Diva, didn't I see your good Janet in just such another
dress, and I thought at the time how odd it was that----"

"If you saw Janet this morning," said Diva quite firmly, "you saw her in
her print dress."

"And here's Major Benjy," said Miss Mapp, who had made her slip about
his Christian name yesterday, and had been duly entreated to continue
slipping. "And Captain Puffin. Well, that is nice! Shall we go into my
little garden shed, dear Mrs. Poppit, and have our tea?"

Major Flint was still a little lame, for his golf to-day had been of the
nature of gardening, and he hobbled up the steps behind the ladies, with
that little cock-sparrow sailor following him and telling the Padre how
badly and yet how successfully he himself had played.

"Pleasantest room in Tilling, I always say, Miss Elizabeth," said he,
diverting his mind from a mere game to the fairies.

"My dear little room," said Miss Mapp, knowing that it was much larger
than anything in Mrs. Poppit's house. "So tiny!"

"Oh, not a bad-sized little room," said Mrs. Poppit encouragingly. "Much
the same proportions, on a very small scale, as the throne-room at
Buckingham Palace."

"That beautiful throne-room!" exclaimed Miss Mapp. "A cup of tea, dear
Mrs. Poppit? None of that naughty red-currant fool, I am afraid. And a
little chocolate-cake?"

These substantial chocolate cakes soon did their fell work of producing
the sense of surfeit, and presently Elizabeth's guests dropped off
gorged from the tea-table. Diva fortunately remembered their consistency
in time, and nearly cleared a plate of jumbles instead, which the
hostess had hoped would form a pleasant accompaniment to her dessert at
her supper this evening, and was still crashingly engaged on them when
the general drifting movement towards the two bridge-tables set in. Mrs.
Poppit, with her glasses up, followed by Isabel, was employed in making
a tour of the room, in case, as Miss Mapp had already determined, she
never saw it again, examining the quality of the carpet, the curtains,
the chair-backs with the air of a doubtful purchaser.

"And quite a quantity of books, I see," she announced as she came
opposite the fatal cupboard. "Look, Isabel, what a quantity of books.
There is something strange about them, though; I do not believe they are
real."

She put out her hand and pulled at the back of one of the volumes of
"Elegant Extracts." The door swung open, and from behind it came a noise
of rattling, bumping and clattering. Something soft and heavy thumped on
to the floor, and a cloud of floury dust arose. A bottle of bovril
embedded itself quietly there without damage, and a tin of Bath Oliver
biscuits beat a fierce tattoo on one of corned beef. Innumerable dried
apricots from the burst package flew about like shrapnel, and tapped at
the tins. A jar of prunes, breaking its fall on the flour, rolled
merrily out into the middle of the floor.

The din was succeeded by complete silence. The Padre had said "What ho,
i' fegs?" during the tumult, but his voice had been drowned by the
rattling of the dried apricots. The Member of the Order of the British
Empire stepped free of the provisions that bumped round her, and
examined them through her glasses. Diva crammed the last jumble into
her mouth and disposed of it with the utmost rapidity. The birthday of
her life had come, as Miss Rossetti said.

"Dear Elizabeth!" she exclaimed. "What a disaster! All your little
stores in case of the coal strike. Let me help to pick them up. I do not
think anything is broken. Isn't that lucky?"

Evie hurried to the spot.

"Such a quantity of good things," she said rapidly under her breath.
"Tinned meats and bovril and prunes, and ever so many apricots. Let me
pick them all up, and with a little dusting.... Why, what a big
cupboard, and such a quantity of good things."

Miss Mapp had certainly struck a streak of embarrassments. What with
naked Mr. Hopkins, and Janet's frock and this unveiling of her hoard,
life seemed at the moment really to consist of nothing else than beastly
situations. How on earth that catch of the door had come undone, she had
no idea, but much as she would have liked to suspect foul play from
somebody, she was bound to conclude that Mrs. Poppit with her prying
hands had accidentally pressed it. It was like Diva, of course, to break
the silence with odious allusions to hoarding, and bitterly she wished
that she had not started the topic the other day, but had been content
to lay in her stores without so pointedly affirming that she was doing
nothing of the kind. But this was no time for vain laments, and
restraining a natural impulse to scratch and beat Mrs. Poppit, she
exhibited an admirable inventiveness and composure. Though she knew it
would deceive nobody, everybody had to pretend he was deceived.

"Oh, my poor little Christmas presents for your needy parishioners,
Padre," she said. "You've seen them before you were meant to, and you
must forget all about them. And so little harm done, just an apricot or
two. Withers will pick them all up, so let us get to our bridge."

Withers entered the room at this moment to clear away tea, and Miss Mapp
explained it all over again.

"All our little Christmas presents have come tumbling out, Withers," she
said. "Will you put as many as you can back in the cupboard and take the
rest indoors? Don't tread on the apricots."

It was difficult to avoid doing this, as the apricots were everywhere,
and their colour on the brown carpet was wonderfully protective. Miss
Mapp herself had already stepped on two, and their adhesive stickiness
was hard to get rid of. In fact, for the next few minutes the
coal-shovel was in strong request for their removal from the soles of
shoes, and the fender was littered with their squashed remains.... The
party generally was distinctly thoughtful as it sorted itself out into
two tables, for every single member of it was trying to assimilate the
amazing proposition that Miss Mapp had, half-way through September,
loaded her cupboard with Christmas presents on a scale that staggered
belief. The feat required thought: it required a faith so childlike as
to verge on the imbecile. Conversation during deals had an awkward
tendency towards discussion of the coal strike. As often as it drifted
there the subject was changed very abruptly, just as if there was some
occult reason for not speaking of so natural a topic. It concerned
everybody, but it was rightly felt to concern Miss Mapp the most....




CHAPTER V


It was the Major's turn to entertain his friend, and by half-past nine,
on a certain squally October evening, he and Puffin were seated by the
fire in the diary-room, while the rain volleyed at the windows and
occasional puffs of stinging smoke were driven down the chimney by the
gale that squealed and buffeted round the house. Puffin, by way of
keeping up the comedy of Roman roads, had brought a map of the district
across from his house, but the more essential part of his equipment for
this studious evening was a bottle of whisky. Originally the host had
provided whisky for himself and his guest at these pleasant chats, but
there were undeniable objections to this plan, because the guest always
proved unusually thirsty, which tempted his host to keep pace with him,
while if they both drank at their own expense, the causes of economy and
abstemiousness had a better chance. Also, while the Major took his
drinks short and strong in a small tumbler, Puffin enriched his with
lemons and sugar in a large one, so that nobody could really tell if
equality as well as fraternity was realized. But if each brought his own
bottle....

It had been a trying day, and the Major was very lame. A drenching storm
had come up during their golf, while they were far from the club-house,
and Puffin, being three up, had very naturally refused to accede to his
opponent's suggestion to call the match off. He was perfectly willing to
be paid his half-crown and go home, but Major Flint, remembering that
Puffin's game usually went to pieces if it rained, had rejected this
proposal with the scorn that it deserved. There had been other
disagreeable incidents as well. His driver, slippery from rain, had
flown out of the Major's hands on the twelfth tee, and had "shot like a
streamer of the northern morn," and landed in a pool of brackish water
left by an unusually high tide. The ball had gone into another pool
nearer the tee. The ground was greasy with moisture, and three holes
further on Puffin had fallen flat on his face instead of lashing his
fifth shot home on to the green, as he had intended. They had given each
other stimies, and each had holed his opponent's ball by mistake; they
had wrangled over the correct procedure if you lay in a rabbit-scrape or
on the tram lines; the Major had lost a new ball; there was a mushroom
on one of the greens between Puffin's ball and the hole.... All these
untoward incidents had come crowding in together, and from the Major's
point of view, the worst of them all had been the collective incident
that Puffin, so far from being put off by the rain, had, in spite of
mushroom and falling down, played with a steadiness of which he was
usually quite incapable. Consequently Major Flint was lame and his wound
troubled him, while Puffin, in spite of his obvious reasons for
complacency, was growing irritated with his companion's ill-temper, and
was half blinded by wood-smoke.

He wiped his streaming eyes.

"You should get your chimney swept," he observed.

Major Flint had put his handkerchief over his face to keep the
wood-smoke out of his eyes. He blew it off with a loud, indignant puff.

"Oh! Ah! Indeed!" he said.

Puffin was rather taken aback by the violence of these interjections;
they dripped with angry sarcasm.

"Oh, well! No offence," he said.

"A man," said the Major impersonally, "makes an offensive remark, and
says 'No offence.' If your own fireside suits you better than mine,
Captain Puffin, all I can say is that you're at liberty to enjoy it!"

This was all rather irregular: they had indulged in a good stiff breeze
this afternoon, and it was too early to ruffle the calm again. Puffin
plucked and proffered an olive-branch.

"There's your handkerchief," he said, picking it up. "Now let's have one
of our comfortable talks. Hot glass of grog and a chat over the fire:
that's the best thing after such a wetting as we got this afternoon.
I'll take a slice of lemon, if you'll be so good as to give it me, and a
lump of sugar."

The Major got up and limped to his cupboard. It struck him precisely at
that moment that Puffin scored considerably over lemons and sugar,
because he was supplied with them gratis every other night; whereas he
himself, when Puffin's guest, took nothing off his host but hot water.
He determined to ask for some biscuits, anyhow, to-morrow....

"I hardly know whether there's a lemon left," he grumbled. "I must lay
in a store of lemons. As for sugar----"

Puffin chose to disregard this suggestion.

"Amusing incident the other day," he said brightly, "when Miss Mapp's
cupboard door flew open. The old lady didn't like it. Don't suppose the
poor of the parish will see much of that corned beef."

The Major became dignified.

"Pardon me," he said. "When an esteemed friend like Miss Elizabeth tells
me that certain provisions are destined for the poor of the parish, I
take it that her statement is correct. I expect others of my friends,
while they are in my presence, to do the same. I have the honour to give
you a lemon, Captain Puffin, and a slice of sugar. I should say a lump
of sugar. Pray make yourself comfortable."

This dignified and lofty mood was often one of the after-effects of an
unsuccessful game of golf. It generally yielded quite quickly to a
little stimulant. Puffin filled his glass from the bottle and the
kettle, while his friend put his handkerchief again over his face.

"Well, I shall just have my grog before I turn in," he observed,
according to custom. "Aren't you going to join me, Major?"

"Presently, sir," said the Major.

Puffin knocked out the consumed cinders in his pipe against the edge of
the fender. Major Flint apparently was waiting for this, for he withdrew
his handkerchief and closely watched the process. A minute piece of ash
fell from Puffin's pipe on to the hearthrug, and he jumped to his feet
and removed it very carefully with the shovel.

"I have your permission, I hope?" he said witheringly.

"Certainly, certainly," said Puffin. "Now get your glass, Major. You'll
feel better in a minute or two."

Major Flint would have liked to have kept up this magnificent attitude,
but the smell of Puffin's steaming glass beat dignity down, and after
glaring at him, he limped back to the cupboard for his whisky bottle. He
gave a lamentable cry when he beheld it.

"But I got that bottle in only the day before yesterday," he shouted,
"and there's hardly a drink left in it."

"Well, you did yourself pretty well last night," said Puffin. "Those
small glasses of yours, if frequently filled up, empty a bottle quicker
than you seem to realize."

Motives of policy prevented the Major from receiving this with the
resentment that was proper to it, and his face cleared. He would get
quits over these incessant lemons and lumps of sugar.

"Well, you'll have to let me borrow from you to-night," he said
genially, as he poured the rest of the contents of his bottle into the
glass. "Ah, that's more the ticket! A glass of whisky a day keeps the
doctor away."

The prospect of sponging on Puffin was most exhilarating, and he put his
large slippered feet on to the fender.

"Yes, indeed, that was a highly amusing incident about Miss Mapp's
cupboard," he said. "And wasn't Mrs. Plaistow down on her like a knife
about it? Our fair friends, you know, have a pretty sharp eye for each
other's little failings. They've no sooner finished one squabble than
they begin another, the pert little fairies. They can't sit and enjoy
themselves like two old cronies I could tell you of, and feel at peace
with all the world."

He finished his glass at a gulp, and seemed much surprised to find it
empty.

"I'll be borrowing a drop from you, old friend," he said.

"Help yourself, Major," said Puffin, with a keen eye as to how much he
took.

"Very obliging of you. I feel as if I caught a bit of a chill this
afternoon. My wound."

"Be careful not to inflame it," said Puffin.

"Thank ye for the warning. It's this beastly climate that touches it up.
A winter in England adds years on to a man's life unless he takes care
of himself. Take care of yourself, old boy. Have some more sugar."

Before long the Major's hand was moving slowly and instinctively towards
Puffin's whisky bottle again.

"I reckon that big glass of yours, Puffin," he said, "holds between
three and a half times to four times what my little tumbler holds.
Between three and a half and four I should reckon. I may be wrong."

"Reckoning the water in, I daresay you're not far out, Major," said he.
"And according to my estimate you mix your drink somewhere about three
and a half times to four stronger than I mix mine."

"Oh, come, come!" said the Major.

"Three and a half to four times, _I_ should say," repeated Puffin. "You
won't find I'm far out."

He replenished his big tumbler, and instead of putting the bottle back
on the table, absently deposited it on the floor on the far side of his
chair. This second tumbler usually marked the most convivial period of
the evening, for the first would have healed whatever unhappy discords
had marred the harmony of the day, and, those being disposed of, they
very contentedly talked through their hats about past prowesses, and
took a rosy view of the youth and energy which still beat in their
vigorous pulses. They would begin, perhaps, by extolling each other:
Puffin, when informed that his friend would be fifty-four next birthday,
flatly refused (without offence) to believe it, and, indeed, he was
quite right in so doing, because the Major was in reality fifty-six. In
turn, Major Flint would say that his friend had the figure of a boy of
twenty, which caused Puffin presently to feel a little cramped and to
wander negligently in front of the big looking-glass between the
windows, and find this compliment much easier to swallow than the
Major's age. For the next half-hour they would chiefly talk about
themselves in a pleasant glow of self-satisfaction. Major Flint, looking
at the various implements and trophies that adorned the room, would
suggest putting a sporting challenge in the _Times_.

"'Pon my word, Puffin," he would say, "I've half a mind to do it.
Retired Major of His Majesty's Forces--the King, God bless him!" (and he
took a substantial sip); "'Retired Major, aged fifty-four, challenges
any gentleman of fifty years or over.'"

"Forty," said Puffin sycophantically, as he thought over what he would
say about himself when the old man had finished.

"Well, we'll halve it, we'll say forty-five, to please you,
Puffin--let's see, where had I got to?--'Retired Major challenges any
gentleman of forty-five years or over to--to a shooting match in the
morning, followed by half a dozen rounds with four-ounce gloves, a game
of golf, eighteen holes, in the afternoon, and a billiard match of two
hundred up after tea.' Ha! ha! I shouldn't feel much anxiety as to the
result."

"My confounded leg!" said Puffin. "But I know a retired captain from His
Majesty's merchant service--the King, God bless him!--aged fifty----"

"Ho! ho! Fifty, indeed!" said the Major, thinking to himself that a
dried-up little man like Puffin might be as old as an Egyptian mummy.
Who can tell the age of a kipper?...

"Not a day less, Major. 'Retired Captain, aged fifty, who'll take on all
comers of forty-two and over, at a steeplechase, round of golf, billiard
match, hopping match, gymnastic competition, swinging Indian clubs----'
No objection, gentlemen? Then carried _nem. con._"

This gaseous mood, athletic, amatory or otherwise (the amatory ones were
the worst), usually faded slowly, like the light from the setting sun or
an exhausted coal in the grate, about the end of Puffin's second
tumbler, and the gentlemen after that were usually somnolent, but
occasionally laid the foundation for some disagreement next day, which
they were too sleepy to go into now. Major Flint by this time would have
had some five small glasses of whisky (equivalent, as he bitterly
observed, to one in pre-war days), and as he measured his next with
extreme care and a slightly jerky movement, would announce it as being
his night-cap, though you would have thought he had plenty of night-caps
on already. Puffin correspondingly took a thimbleful more (the thimble
apparently belonging to some housewife of Anak), and after another
half-hour of sudden single snores and startings awake again, of pipes
frequently lit and immediately going out, the guest, still perfectly
capable of coherent speech and voluntary motion in the required
direction, would stumble across the dark cobbles to his house, and doors
would be very carefully closed for fear of attracting the attention of
the lady who at this period of the evening was usually known as "Old
Mappy." The two were perfectly well aware of the sympathetic interest
that Old Mappy took in all that concerned them, and that she had an eye
on their evening seances was evidenced by the frequency with which the
corner of her blind in the window of the garden-room was raised between,
say, half-past nine and eleven at nigh

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