by E. F. Benson
‘Of course you were wrong,’ said Diva cordially, ‘if Mr Wyse’s account of it is correct. You sent the pictures back, such beauties, too, with a formal rejection from the hanging committee when they had never seen them at all. So rash, too: I wonder at you.’
These unfavourable comments did not make the transaction appear any the less irregular.
‘I said I was wrong, Diva,’ remarked Elizabeth with some asperity, ‘and I should have thought that was enough. And now Mr Wyse, raking bygones up again in the way he has, has written to me to say that he and Susan resign their places on the hanging committee.’
‘I know: they told everybody,’ said Diva. ‘Awkward. What are you going to do?’
The barometer had jerked alarmingly downwards on this renewed tapping.
‘I shall cry peccavi,’ said Elizabeth, with the air of doing something exceedingly noble. ‘I shall myself resign. That will show that whatever anybody else does, I am doing the best in my power to put right a technical error. I hope Mr Wyse will appreciate that, and be ashamed of the letter he wrote me. More than that, I shall regard his letter as having been written in a fit of temporary insanity, which I trust will not recur.’
‘Yes; I suppose that’s the best thing you can do,’ said Diva. ‘It will show him that you regret what you did, now that it’s all found out.’
‘That is not generous of you, Diva,’ cried Elizabeth, ‘I am sorry you said that.’
‘More than I am,’ said Diva. ‘It’s a very fair statement. Isn’t it now? What’s wrong with it?’
Elizabeth suddenly perceived that at this crisis it was unwise to indulge in her usual tiffs with Diva. She wanted allies.
‘Diva, dear, we mustn’t quarrel,’ she said. ‘That would never do. I felt I had to pop in to consult you as to the right course to take with Mr Wyse, and I’m so glad you agree with me. How I trust your judgment! I must be going. What a delightful evening we have in store for us. Major Benjy was thinking of declining, but I persuaded him it would not be kind. A house-warming, you know. Such a special occasion.’
The evening to which everybody had looked forward so much was, in the main, a disappointment to bellicose spirits. Nothing could exceed Lucia’s cordiality to Elizabeth unless it was Elizabeth’s to Lucia: they left the dining-room at the end of dinner with arms and waists intertwined, a very bitter sight. They then played bridge at the same table, and so loaded each other with compliments while deploring their own errors, that Diva began to entertain the most serious fears that they had been mean enough to make it up on the sly, or that Lucia in a spirit of Christian forbearance, positively unnatural, had decided to overlook all the attacks and insults with which Elizabeth had tried to provoke her. Or did Lucia think that this degrading display of magnanimity was a weapon by which she would secure victory, by enlisting for her the sympathy and applause of Tilling? If so, that was a great mistake; Tilling did not want to witness a demonstration of forgiveness or white feathers but a combat without quarter. Again, if she thought that such nobility would soften the malevolent heart of Mapp, she showed a distressing ignorance of Mapp’s nature, for she would quite properly construe this as not being nobility at all but the most ignoble cowardice. There was Georgie under Lucia’s very nose, interlarding his conversation with far more ‘Elizabeths’ than was in the least necessary to show that he was talking to her, and she volleyed ‘Georgies’ at him in return. Every now and then, when these discharges of Christian names had been particularly resonant, Elizabeth caught Diva’s eye with a glance of triumph as if to remind her that she had prophesied that Lulu would be all sweetness and cordiality, and Diva turned away sick at heart.
On the other hand, there were still grounds for hope, and, as the evening went on, these became more promising: they were like small caps of foam and cats’-paws of wind upon a tranquil sea. To begin with, it was only this morning that the baseness of Elizabeth in that matter concerning the art committee had come to light. Georgie, not Lucia, had been directly responsible for that damning disclosure, but it must be supposed that he had acted with her connivance, if not with her express wish, and this certainly did not look so much like forgiveness as a nasty one for Elizabeth. That was hopeful, and Diva’s eagle eye espied other signs of bad weather. Elizabeth, encouraged by Lucia’s compliments and humilities throughout a long rubber, began to come out more in her true colours, and to explain to her partner that she had lost a few tricks (no matter) by not taking a finesse, or a whole game by not supporting her declaration, and Diva thought she detected a certain dangerous glitter in Lucia’s eye as she bent to these chastisements. Surely, too, she bit her lip when Elizabeth suddenly began to call her Lulu again. Then there was Irene’s conduct to consider: Irene was fizzing and fidgeting in her chair, she cast glances of black hatred at Elizabeth, and once Diva distinctly saw Lucia frown and shake her head at her. Again, at the voluptuous supper which succeeded many rubbers of bridge, there was the famous lobster à la Riseholme. It had become, as all Tilling knew, a positive obsession with Elizabeth to get the secret of that delicious dish, and now, flushed with continuous victories at bridge and with Lucia’s persevering pleasantness, she made another direct request for it.
‘Lulu dear,’ she said, ‘it would be sweet of you to give me the recipe for your lobster. So good …’
Diva felt this to be a crucial moment: Lucia had often refused it before, but now if she was wholly Christian and cowardly she would consent. But once more she gave no reply, and asked the Padre on what day of the week Christmas fell. So Diva heaved a sigh of relief, for there was still hope.
In spite of this rebuff, it was hardly to be wondered at that Elizabeth felt in a high state of elation when the evening was over. The returning revellers changed the order of their going, and Georgie took back her and Diva. He went outside with Diva, for, during the last half-hour, Mapp (as he now mentally termed her in order to be done with Elizabeth) had grown like a mushroom in complaisance and self-confidence, and he could not trust himself, if she went on, as she would no doubt do, in the same strain, not to rap out something very sharp. ‘Let her just wait,’ he thought, ‘she’ll soon be singing a different tune.’
Georgie’s precautions in going outside, well wrapped up in his cap and his fur tippet and his fur rug, were well founded, for hardly had Mapp kissed her hand for the last time to Lulu (who would come to the door to see them off), and counted over the money she had won, than she burst into staves of intolerable triumph and condescension.
‘So that’s that!’ she said, pulling up the window. ‘And if I was to ask you, dear Diva, which of us was right about how this evening would go off, I don’t think there would be very much doubt about the answer. Did you ever see Lulu so terribly anxious to please me? And did you happen to hear me say Georgie and him say Elizabeth? Lulu didn’t like it, I am sure, but she had to swallow her medicine, and she did so with a very good grace, I am bound to say. She just wanted a little lesson, and I think I may say I’ve given it her. I had no idea, I will confess, that she would take it lying down like that. I just had to lean out of the window, pretend not to see her, and talk to Georgie in that silly voice and language and the thing was done.’
Diva had been talking simultaneously for some time, but Elizabeth only paused to take breath, and went on in a slightly louder tone. So Diva talked louder too, until Georgie turned round to see what was happening. They both broke off, and smiled at him, and then both began again.
‘If you would allow me to get a word in edgeways,’ said Diva, who had some solid arguments to produce, and, had she not been a lady, could have slapped Mapp’s face in impotent rage –
‘I don’t think,’ said Elizabeth, ‘that we shall have much more trouble with her and her queenly airs. Quite a pleasant house-warming, and there was no doubt that the house wanted it, for it was bitterly cold in the dining-room, and I strongly suspect that chicken-cream of being rabbit. She only had to be shown that whatever Riseholme may have stood from her in the way
of condescensions and graces, she had better not try them on at Tilling. She was looking forward to teaching us, and ruling us and guiding us. Pop! Elizabeth (that’s me, dear!) has a little lamb, which lives at Grebe and gives a house-warming, so you may guess who that is. The way she flattered and sued to-night over our cards when but a few weeks ago she was thinking of holding bridge classes –’
‘You were just as bad,’ shouted Diva. ‘You told her she played beauti –’
‘She was “all over me”, to use that dreadful slang expression of Major Benjy’s,’ continued Mapp. ‘She was like a dog that has had a scolding and begs – so prettily – to be forgiven. Mind, dear, I do not say that she is a bad sort of woman by any means, but she required to be put in her place, and Tilling ought to thank me for having done so. Dear me, here we are already at your house. How short the drive has seemed!’
‘Anyhow, you didn’t get the recipe for the lobster à la Riseholme,’ said Diva, for this was one of the things she most wanted to say.
‘A little final wriggle,’ said Mapp. ‘I have not the least doubt that she will think it over and send it me to-morrow. Good night, darling. I shall be sending out invitations for a cosy evening of bridge some time at the end of this week.’
The baffled Diva let herself into Wasters in low spirits, so convinced and lucid had been Mapp’s comments on the evening. It was such a dismal conclusion to so much excitement; and all that thrilling tension, instead of snapping, had relaxed into the most depressing slackness. But she did not quite give up hope, for there had been cats’-paws and caps of foam on the tranquil sea. She fell asleep visualizing these.
9
Though Georgie had thought that the garden-room would have to give him at least two more sittings before his sketch arrived at that high state of finish which he, like the Pre-Raphaelites, regarded as necessary to any work of art, he decided that he would leave it in a more impressionist state, and sent it next morning to be framed. In consequence the glass of water which Elizabeth had brought out for him in anticipation of his now usual visit at eleven o’clock remained unsullied by washings from his brush, and at twelve, Elizabeth, being rather thirsty in consequence of so late a supper the night before, drank it herself. On the second morning, a very wet one, Major Benjy did not go out for his usual round of golf, and again Georgie did not come to paint. But at a few minutes to one she observed that his car was at the door of Mallards Cottage; it passed her window, it stopped at Major Benjy’s, and he got in. It was impossible not to remember that Lucia always lunched at one in the winter because a later hour for colazione made the afternoon so short. But it was a surprise to see Major Benjy driving away with Miss Milliner Michael-Angelo, and difficult to conjecture where else it was at all likely that they could have gone.
There was half an hour yet to her own luncheon, and she wrote seven post cards inviting seven friends to tea on Saturday, with bridge to follow. The Wyses, the Padres, Diva, Major Benjy and Georgie were the destinataires of these missives; these, with herself, made eight, and there would thus be two tables of agreeable gamblers. Lucia was not to be favoured: it would be salutary for her to be left out every now and then, just to impress upon her the lesson of which she had stood so sadly in need. She must learn to go to heel, to come when called, and to produce recipes when desired, which at present she had not done.
There had been several days of heavy rain, but early in the afternoon it cleared up, and Elizabeth set out for a brisk healthy walk. The field-paths would certainly make very miry going, for she saw from the end of the High Street that there was much water lying in the marsh, and she therefore kept to that excellent road, which, having passed Grebe, went nowhere particular. She was prepared to go in and thank Lucia for her lovely house-warming, in order to make sure whether Georgie and Major Benjy had gone to lunch with her, but no such humiliating need occurred, for there in front of the house was drawn up Georgie’s motor-car, so (whether she liked it or not, and she didn’t) that problem was solved. The house stood quite close to the road: a flagged pathway of half a dozen yards, flanked at the entrance-gate by thick hornbeam hedges on which the leaf still lingered, separated it from the road, and just as Elizabeth passed Georgie’s car drawn up there, the front door opened, and she saw Lucia and her two guests on the threshold. Major Benjy was laughing in that fat voice of his, and Georgie was giving forth his shrill little neighs like a colt with a half-cracked voice.
The temptation to know what they were laughing at was irresistible. Elizabeth moved a few steps on and, screened by the hornbeam hedge, held her breath.
Major Benjy gave another great haw-haw and spoke.
‘’Pon my word, did she really?’ he said. ‘Do it again, Mrs Lucas. Never laughed so much in my life. Infernal impertinence!’
There was no mistaking the voice and the words that followed.
‘’Oo is vewy naughty boy, Georgie,’ said Lucia. ‘Never ring Elizabeth’s belly-pelly –’
Elizabeth hurried on, as she heard steps coming down that short flagged pathway. But hurry as she might, she heard a little more.
‘’Oo walk straight in always and sing out for her,’ continued the voice, repeating word for word the speech of which she had been so proud. ‘There’s no chain up’ – and then came loathsome parody – ‘now that Liblib has ritornata to Mallardino.’
It was in a scared mood, as if she had heard or seen a ghost, that Elizabeth hastened along up the road that led nowhere in particular, before Lucia’s guests could emerge from the gate. Luckily at the end of the kitchen-garden the hornbeam hedge turned at right-angles, and behind this bastion she hid herself till she heard the motor move away in the direction of Tilling, the prey of the most agitated misgivings. Was it possible that her own speech, which she had thought had scarified Lucia’s pride, was being turned into a mockery and a derision against herself? It seemed not only possible but probable. And how dare Mrs Lucas invent and repeat as if spoken by herself that rubbish about ritornata and Mallardino? Never in her life had she said such a thing.
When the coast was clear, she took the road again, and walked quickly on away from Tilling. The tide was very high, for the river was swollen with rain, and the waters overbrimmed its channel and extended in a great lake up to the foot of the bank and dyke which bounded the road. Perturbed as she was, Miss Mapp could not help admiring that broad expanse of water, now lit by a gleam of sun, in front of which to the westward, the hill of Tilling rose dark against a sky already growing red with the winter sunset. She had just turned a corner in the road, and now she perceived that close ahead of her somebody else was admiring it too in a more practical manner, for there by the roadside within twenty yards of her sat quaint Irene, with her mouth full of paint-brushes and an easel set up in front of her. She had not seen Irene since the night of the house-warming, when the quaint one had not been very cordial, and so, thinking she had walked far enough, she turned back. But Irene had quite evidently seen her, for she shaded her eyes for a moment against the glare, took some of the paint-brushes out of her mouth and called to her with words that seemed to have what might be termed a dangerous undertow.
‘Hullo, Mapp,’ she said. ‘Been lunching with Lulu?’
‘What a lovely sketch, dear,’ said Mapp. ‘No, just a brisk little walk. Not been lunching at Grebe to-day.’
Irene laughed hoarsely.
‘I didn’t think it was very likely, but thought I would ask,’ she said. ‘Yes; I’m rather pleased with my sketch. A bloody look about the sunlight, isn’t there, as if the Day of Judgment was coming. I’m going to send it to the winter exhibition of the Art Club.’
‘Dear girlie, what do you mean?’ asked Mapp. ‘We don’t have winter exhibitions.’
‘No, but we’re going to,’ said girlie. ‘A new hanging committee, you see, full of pep and pop and vim. Haven’t they asked you to send them something … Of course the space at their disposal is very limited.’
Mapp laughed, but not with any great exuberance
. This undertow was tweaking at her disagreeably.
‘That’s news to me,’ she said. ‘Most enterprising of Mr Wyse and dear Susan.’
‘Sweet Lulu’s idea,’ said Irene. ‘As soon as you sent in your resignation, of course they asked her to be President.’
‘That is nice for her,’ said Mapp enthusiastically. ‘She will like that. I must get to work on some little picky to send them.’
‘There’s that one you did from the church tower when Lucia had influenza,’ said this awful Irene. ‘That would be nice … Oh, I forgot. Stupid of me. It’s by invitation: the committee are asking a few people to send pickies. No doubt they’ll beg you for one. Such a good plan. There won’t be any mistakes in the future about rejecting what is sent in.’
Mapp gave a gulp but rallied.
‘I see. They’ll be all Academicians together, and be hung on the line,’ said she unflinchingly.
‘Yes. On the line or be put on easels,’ said Irene. ‘Curse the light! It’s fading. I must pack up. Hold these brushes, will you?’
‘And then we’ll walk back home together, shall we? A cup of tea with me, dear?’ asked Mapp, anxious to conciliate and to know more.
‘I’m going into Lucia’s, I’m afraid. Wyses tummin’ to play bridgey and hold a committee meeting,’ said Irene.
‘You are a cruel thing to imitate poor Lulu,’ said Mapp. ‘How well you’ve caught that silly baby-talk of hers. Just her voice. Bye-bye.’
‘Same to you,’ said Irene.
There was undoubtedly, thought Mapp, as she scudded swiftly homewards alone, a sort of mocking note about quaint Irene’s conversation, which she did not relish. It was full of hints and awkward allusions; it bristled with hidden menace, and even her imitation of Lucia’s baby-talk was not wholly satisfactory, for quaint Irene might be mimicking her imitation of Lucia, even as Lucia herself had done, and there was very little humour in that. Presently she passed the Wyses’ Royce going to Grebe. She kissed her hand to a mound of sables inside, but it was too dark to see if the salute was returned. Her brisk afternoon’s walk had not freshened her up; she was aware of a feeling of fatigue, of a vague depression and anxiety. And mixed with that was a hunger not only for tea but for more information. There seemed to be things going on of which she was sadly ignorant, and even when her ignorance was enlightened, they remained rather sad. But Diva (such a gossip) might know more about this winter exhibition, and she popped into Wasters. Diva was in, and begged her to wait for tea: she would be down in a few minutes.