by E. F. Benson
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 today. 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“Well, my diaries kept me up late last night,” he said.“When all you fascinating ladies have withdrawn is the only time at which I can bring myself to sit down to them.”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 today.”
“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 today, 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 butexciting 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 bowin
g 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 tomorrow. 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.”