The dyer, as Diva had feared, proved perfidious, and it was not till the
next morning that her maid brought her the parcel containing the coat
and skirt of the projected costume. Diva had already done her marketing,
so that she might have no other calls on her time to interfere with the
tacking on of the bunches of pink roses, and she hoped to have the dress
finished in time for Elizabeth's afternoon bridge-party next day, an
invitation to which had just reached her. She had also settled to have a
cold lunch to-day, so that her cook as well as her parlourmaid could
devote themselves to the job.
She herself had taken the jacket for decoration, and was just tacking
the first rose on to the collar, when she looked out of the window, and
what she saw caused her needle to fall from her nerveless hand. Tripping
along the opposite pavement was Elizabeth. She had on a dress, the
material of which, after a moment's gaze, Diva identified: it was that
corn-coloured coat and skirt which she had worn so much last spring. But
the collar, the cuffs, the waistband and the hem of the skirt were
covered with staring red poppies. Next moment, she called to remembrance
the chintz that had once covered Elizabeth's sofa in the garden-room.
Diva wasted no time, but rang the bell. She had to make certain.
"Janet," she said, "go straight out into the High Street, and walk close
behind Miss Mapp. Look very carefully at her dress; see if the poppies
on it are of chintz."
Janet's face fell.
"Why, ma'am, she's never gone and----" she began.
"Quick!" said Diva in a strangled voice.
Diva watched from her window. Janet went out, looked this way and that,
spied the quarry, and skimmed up the High Street on feet that twinkled
as fast as her mistress's. She came back much out of breath with speed
and indignation.
"Yes, ma'am," she said. "They're chintz sure enough. Tacked on, too,
just as you were meaning to do. Oh, ma'am----"
Janet quite appreciated the magnitude of the calamity and her voice
failed.
"What are we to do, ma'am?" she added.
Diva did not reply for a moment, but sat with eyes closed in profound
and concentrated thought. It required no reflection to decide how
impossible it was to appear herself to-morrow in a dress which seemed to
ape the costume which all Tilling had seen Elizabeth wearing to-day, and
at first it looked as if there was nothing to be done with all those
laboriously acquired bunches of rosebuds; for it was clearly out of the
question to use them as the decoration for any costume, and idle to
think of sewing them back into the snipped and gashed curtains. She
looked at the purple skirt and coat that hungered for their flowers, and
then she looked at Janet. Janet was a short, roundabout person; it was
ill-naturedly supposed that she had much the same figure as her
mistress....
Then the light broke, dazzling and diabolical, and Diva bounced to her
feet, blinded by its splendour.
"My coat and skirt are yours, Janet," she said. "Get with the work both
of you. Bustle. Cover it with roses. Have it finished to-night. Wear it
to-morrow. Wear it always."
She gave a loud cackle of laughter and threaded her needle.
"Lor, ma'am!" said Janet, admiringly. "That's a teaser! And thank you,
ma'am!"
"It was roses, roses all the way." Diva had quite miscalculated the
number required, and there were sufficient not only to cover collar,
cuffs and border of the skirt with them but to make another line of them
six inches above the hem. Original and gorgeous as the dress would be,
it was yet a sort of parody of Elizabeth's costume which was attracting
so much interest and attention as she popped in and out of shops to-day.
To-morrow that would be worn by Janet, and Janet (or Diva was much
mistaken) should encourage her friends to get permission to use up old
bits of chintz. Very likely chintz decoration would become quite a vogue
among the servant maids of Tilling.... How Elizabeth had got hold of the
idea mattered nothing, but anyhow she would be surfeited with the idea
before Diva had finished with her. It was possible, of course (anything
was possible), that it had occurred to her independently, but Diva was
loath to give so innocent an ancestry to her adoption of it. It was far
more sensible to take for granted that she had got wind of Diva's
invention by some odious, underhand piece of spying. What that might be
must be investigated (and probably determined) later, but at present the
business of Janet's roses eclipsed every other interest.
Miss Mapp's shopping that morning was unusually prolonged, for it was
important that every woman in Tilling should see the poppies on the
corn-coloured ground, and know that she had worn that dress before Diva
appeared in some mean adaptation of it. Though the total cost of her
entire purchases hardly amounted to a shilling, she went in and out of
an amazing number of shops, and made a prodigious series of inquiries
into the price of commodities that ranged from motor-cars to
sealing-wax, and often entered a shop twice because (wreathed in smiling
apologies for her stupidity) she had forgotten what she was told the
first time. By twelve o'clock she was satisfied that practically
everybody, with one exception, had seen her, and that her costume had
aroused a deep sense of jealousy and angry admiration. So cunning was
the handiwork of herself, Withers and Mary that she felt fairly sure
that no one had the slightest notion of how this decoration of poppies
was accomplished, for Evie had run round her in small mouse-like
circles, murmuring to herself: "Very effective idea; is it woven into
the cloth, Elizabeth? Dear me, I wonder where I could get some like it,"
and Mrs. Poppit had followed her all up the street, with eyes glued to
the hem of her skirt, and a completely puzzled face: "but then," so
thought Elizabeth sweetly "even members of the Order of the British
Empire can't have everything their own way." As for the Major, he had
simply come to a dead stop when he bounced out of his house as she
passed, and said something very gallant and appropriate. Even the
absence of that one inhabitant of Tilling, dear Diva, did not strike a
jarring note in this paean of triumph, for Miss Mapp was quite satisfied
that Diva was busy indoors, working her fingers to the bone over the
application of bunches of roses, and, as usual, she was perfectly
correct in her conjecture. But dear Diva would have to see the new
frock to-morrow afternoon, at the latest, when she came to the
bridge-party. Perhaps she would then, for the first time, be wearing the
roses herself, and everybody would very pleasantly pity her. This was so
rapturous a thought, that when Miss Mapp, after her prolonged shopping
and with her almost empty basket, passed Mr. Hopkins standing outside
his shop on her return home again, she gave him her usual smile, though
without meeting his eye, and tried to forget how much of him she had
seen yesterday. Perhaps she might speak to him to-morrow and gradually
resume ordinary relations, for the prices at the other fish shop were as
high as the quality of the fish was low.... She told herself that there
was nothing actually immoral in the human skin, however embarrassing it
was.
* * * * *
Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the
triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major
Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it
was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear
himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to
bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late;
indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window
was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed,
and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad."
On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a
tin of biscuits and two jars of bovril to her prudent stores, she found
herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps)
were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than
archaeology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman
roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was
her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know
what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of
drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it
was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman
roads with it. With her vivid imagination she pictured him----
Miss Mapp recalled herself from this melancholy reflection and put up
her hand just in time to save a bottle of bovril which she had put on
the top shelf in front of the sack of flour from tumbling to the ground.
With the latest additions she had made to her larder, it required
considerable ingenuity to fit all the tins and packages in, and for a
while she diverted her mind from Captain Puffin's drinking to her own
eating. But by careful packing and balancing she managed to stow
everything away with sufficient economy of space to allow her to shut
the door, and then put the card-table in place again. It was then late,
and with a fond look at her sweet flowers sleeping in the moonlight, she
went to bed. Captain Puffin's sitting-room was still alight, and even as
she deplored this, his shadow in profile crossed the blind. Shadows were
queer things--she could make a beautiful shadow-rabbit on the wall by a
dexterous interlacement of fingers and thumbs--and certainly this
shadow, in the momentary glance she had of it, appeared to have a large
moustache. She could make nothing whatever out of that, except to
suppose that just as fingers and thumbs became a rabbit, so his nose
became a moustache, for he could not have grown one since he came back
from golf....
* * * * *
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, 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 further 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
mouse-like 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 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 curtains 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 farther 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 parlour-maids. 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 fuchsias. 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 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 chair-backs with the air of a doubtful purchaser.
"And quite a quantity of books, I see," she announced as she came
opposite the fatal cupboard. "Look, Isabel, what a quantity of books.
There is something strange about them, though; I do not believe they are
real."
She put out her hand and pulled at the back of one of the volumes of
"Elegant Extracts." The door swung open, and from behind it came a noise
of rattling, bumping and clattering. Something soft and heavy thumped on
to the floor, and a cloud of floury dust arose. A bottle of bovril
embedded itself quietly there without damage, and a tin of Bath Oliver
biscuits beat a fierce tattoo on one of corned beef. Innumerable dried
apricots from the burst package flew about like shrapnel, and tapped at
the tins. A jar of prunes, breaking its fall on the flour, rolled
merrily out into the middle of the floor.
The din was succeeded by complete silence. The Padre had said "What ho,
i' fegs?" during the tumult, but his voice had been drowned by the
rattling of the dried apricots. The Member of the Order of the British
Empire stepped free of the provisions that bumped round her, and
examined them through her glasses. Diva crammed the last jumble into
her mouth and disposed of it with the utmost rapidity. The birthday of
her life had come, as Miss Rossetti said.
"Dear Elizabeth!" she exclaimed. "What a disaster! All your little
stores in case of the coal strike. Let me help to pick them up. I do not
think anything is broken. Isn't that lucky?"
Evie hurried to the spot.
"Such a quantity of good things," she said rapidly under her breath.
"Tinned meats and bovril and prunes, and ever so many apricots. Let me
pick them all up, and with a little dusting.... Why, what a big
cupboard, and such a quantity of good things."
Miss Mapp had certainly struck a streak of embarrassments. What with
naked Mr. Hopkins, and Janet's frock and this unveiling of her hoard,
life seemed at the moment really to consist of nothing else than beastly
situations. How on earth that catch of the door had come undone, she had
no idea, but much as she would have liked to suspect foul play from
somebody, she was bound to conclude that Mrs. Poppit with her prying
hands had accidentally pressed it. It was like Diva, of course, to break
the silence with odious allusions to hoarding, and bitterly she wished
that she had not started the topic the other day, but had been content
to lay in her stores without so pointedly affirming that she was doing
nothing of the kind. But this was no time for vain laments, and
restraining a natural impulse to scratch and beat Mrs. Poppit, she
exhibited an admirable inventiveness and composure. Though she knew it
would deceive nobody, everybody had to pretend he was deceived.
"Oh, my poor little Christmas presents for your needy parishioners,
Padre," she said. "You've seen them before you were meant to, and you
must forget all about them. And so little harm done, just an apricot or
two. Withers will pick them all up, so let us get to our bridge."
Withers entered the room at this moment to clear away tea, and Miss Mapp
explained it all over again.
"All our little Christmas presents have come tumbling out, Withers," she
said. "Will you put as many as you can back in the cupboard and take the
rest indoors? Don't tread on the apricots."
It was difficult to avoid doing this, as the apricots were everywhere,
and their colour on the brown carpet was wonderfully protective. Miss
Mapp herself had already stepped on two, and their adhesive stickiness
was hard to get rid of. In fact, for the next few minutes the
coal-shovel was in strong request for their removal from the soles of
shoes, and the fender was littered with their squashed remains.... The
party generally was distinctly thoughtful as it sorted itself out into
two tables, for every single member of it was trying to assimilate the
amazing proposition that Miss Mapp had, half-way through September,
loaded her cupboard with Christmas presents on a scale that staggered
belief. The feat required thought: it required a faith so childlike as
to verge on the imbecile. Conversation during deals had an awkward
tendency towards discussion of the coal strike. As often as it drifted
there the subject was changed very abruptly, just as if there was some
occult reason for not speaking of so natural a topic. It concerned
everybody, but it was rightly felt to concern Miss Mapp the most....