Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “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 h
erself, 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 le
ft, 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.