by E. F. Benson
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, but 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 farther 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 mouselike 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 can 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 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 further 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 parlourmaids. 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 fuchsi
as. 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 a 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 chairbacks with the air of a doubtful purchaser.