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.