Captain Puffin found but a sombre diarist when he came over to study his
Roman roads with Major Flint that evening, and indeed he was a sombre
antiquarian himself. They had pondered a good deal during the day over
their strange reception in the High Street that morning and the
recondite allusions to bags, sand-dunes and early trains, and the more
they pondered the more probable it became that not only was something
up, but, as regards the duel, everything was up. For weeks now they had
been regarded by the ladies of Tilling with something approaching
veneration, but there seemed singularly little veneration at the back of
the comments this morning. Following so closely on the encounter with
Miss Mapp last night, this irreverent attitude was probably due to some
atheistical manoeuvre of hers. Such, at least, was the Major's view, and
when he held a view he usually stated it, did Sporting Benjy.
"We've got you to thank for this, Puffin," he said. "Upon my soul, I was
ashamed of you for saying what you did to Miss Mapp last night. Utter
absence of any chivalrous feeling hinting that if she said you were
drunk you would say she was. She was as sober and lucid last night as
she was this morning. And she was devilish lucid, to my mind, this
morning."
"Pity you didn't take her part last night," said Puffin. "You thought
that was a very ingenious idea of mine to make her hold her tongue."
"There are finer things in this world, sir, than ingenuity," said the
Major. "What your ingenuity has led to is this public ridicule. You may
not mind that yourself--you may be used to it--but a man should regard
the consequences of his act on others.... My status in Tilling is
completely changed. Changed for the worse, sir."
Puffin emitted his fluty, disagreeable laugh.
"If your status in Tilling depended on a reputation for bloodthirsty
bravery," he said, "the sooner it was changed the better. We're in the
same boat: I don't say I like the boat, but there we are. Have a drink,
and you'll feel better. Never mind your status."
"I've a good mind never to have a drink again," said the Major, pouring
himself out one of his stiff little glasses, "if a drink leads to this
sort of thing."
"But it didn't," said Puffin. "How it all got out, I can't say, nor for
that matter can you. If it hadn't been for me last night, it would have
been all over Tilling that you and I were tipsy as well. That wouldn't
have improved our status that I can see."
"It was in consequence of what you said to Mapp----" began the Major.
"But, good Lord, where's the connection?" asked Puffin. "Produce the
connection! Let's have a look at the connection! There ain't any
connection! Duelling wasn't as much as mentioned last night."
Major Flint pondered this in gloomy, sipping silence.
"Bridge-party at Mrs. Poppit's the day after to-morrow," he said. "I
don't feel as if I could face it. Suppose they all go on making
allusions to duelling and early trains and that? I shan't be able to
keep my mind on the cards for fear of it. More than a sensitive man
ought to be asked to bear."
Puffin made a noise that sounded rather like "Fudge!"
"Your pardon?" said the Major haughtily.
"Granted by all means," said Puffin. "But I don't see what you're in
such a taking about. We're no worse off than we were before we got a
reputation for being such fire-eaters. Being fire-eaters is a wash-out,
that's all. Pleasant while it lasted, and now we're as we were."
"But we're not," said the Major. "We're detected frauds! That's not the
same as being a fraud; far from it. And who's going to rub it in, my
friend? Who's been rubbing away for all she's worth? Miss Mapp, to whom,
if I may say so without offence, you behaved like a cur last night."
"And another cur stood by and wagged his tail," retorted Puffin.
This was about as far as it was safe to go, and Puffin hastened to say
something pleasant about the hearthrug, to which his friend had a
suitable rejoinder. But after the affair last night, and the dark
sayings in the High Street this morning, there was little content or
cosiness about the session. Puffin's brazen optimism was but a tinkling
cymbal, and the Major did not feel like tinkling at all. He but snorted
and glowered, revolving in his mind how to square Miss Mapp. Allied with
her, if she could but be won over, he felt he could face the rest of
Tilling with indifference, for hers would be the most penetrating
shafts, the most stinging pleasantries. He had more too, so he
reflected, to lose than Puffin, for till the affair of the duel the
other had never been credited with deeds of bloodthirsty gallantry,
whereas he had enjoyed no end of a reputation in amorous and honourable
affairs. Marriage no doubt would settle it satisfactorily, but this
bachelor life, with plenty of golf and diaries, was not to be lightly
exchanged for the unknown. Short of that ...
A light broke, and he got to his feet, following the gleam and walking
very lame out of general discomfiture.
"Tell you what it is, Puffin," he said. "You and I, particularly you,
owe that estimable lady a very profound apology for what happened last
night. You ought to withdraw every word you said, and I every word that
I didn't say."
"Can't be done," said Puffin. "That would be giving up my hold over your
lady friend. We should be known as drunkards all over the shop before
you could say winkie. Worse off than before."
"Not a bit of it. If it's Miss Mapp, and I'm sure it is, who has been
spreading these--these damaging rumours about our duel, it's because
she's outraged and offended, quite rightly, at your conduct to her last
night. Mine, too, if you like. Ample apology, sir, that's the ticket."
"Dog-ticket," said Puffin. "No thanks."
"Very objectionable expression," said Major Flint. "But you shall do as
you like. And so, with your permission, shall I. I shall apologize for
my share in that sorry performance, in which, thank God, I only played a
minor role. That's my view, and if you don't like it, you may dislike
it."
Puffin yawned.
"Mapp's a cat," he said. "Stroke a cat and you'll get scratched. Shy a
brick at a cat, and she'll spit at you and skedaddle. You're poor
company to-night, Major, with all these qualms."
"Then, sir, you can relieve yourself of my company," said the Major, "by
going home."
"Just what I was about to do. Good night, old boy. Same time to-morrow
for the tram, if you're not too badly mauled."
Miss Mapp, sitting by the hot-water pipes in the garden-room, looked out
not long after to see what the night was like. Though it was not yet
half-past ten the cowards' sitting-rooms were both dark, and she
wondered what precisely that meant. There was no bridge-party anywhere
that night, and apparently there were no diaries or Roman roads either.
Why this sober and chastened darkness?...
The Major qui-hied for his breakfast at an unusually early hour next
morning, for the courage of this resolve to placate, if possible, the
hostility of Miss Mapp had not, like that of the challenge, oozed out
during the night. He had dressed himself in his frock-coat, seen last on
the occasion when the Prince of Wales proved not to have come by the
6.37, and no female breast however furious could fail to recognize the
compliment of such a formality. Dressed thus, with top-hat and
patent-leather boots, he was clearly observed from the garden-room to
emerge into the street just when Captain Puffin's hand thrust the sponge
on to the window-sill of his bath-room. Probably he too had observed
this apparition, for his fingers prematurely loosed hold of the sponge,
and it bounded into the street. Wild surmises flashed into Miss Mapp's
active brain, the most likely of which was that Major Benjy was going to
propose to Mrs. Poppit, for if he had been going up to London for some
ceremonial occasion, he would be walking down the street instead of up
it. And then she saw his agitated finger press the electric bell of her
own door. So he was not on his way to propose to Mrs. Poppit....
She slid from the room and hurried across the few steps of garden to
the house just in time to intercept Withers though not with any idea of
saying that she was out. Then Withers, according to instructions, waited
till Miss Mapp had tiptoed upstairs, and conducted the Major to the
garden-room, promising that she would "tell" her mistress. This was
unnecessary, as her mistress knew. The Major pressed a half-crown into
her astonished hand, thinking it was a florin. He couldn't precisely
account for that impulse, but general propitiation was at the bottom of
it.
Miss Mapp meantime had sat down on her bed, and firmly rejected the idea
that his call had anything to do with marriage. During all these years
of friendliness he had not got so far as that, and, whatever the future
might hold, it was not likely that he would begin now at this moment
when she was so properly punishing him for his unchivalrous behaviour.
But what could the frock-coat mean? (There was Captain Puffin's servant
picking up the sponge. She hoped it was covered with mud.) It would be a
very just continuation of his punishment to tell Withers she would not
see him, but the punishment which that would entail on herself would be
more than she could bear, for she would not know a moment's peace while
she was ignorant of the nature of his errand. Could he be on his way to
the Padre's to challenge him for that very stinging allusion to
sand-dunes yesterday, and was he come to give her fair warning, so that
she might stop a duel? It did not seem likely. Unable to bear the
suspense any longer, she adjusted her face in the glass to an expression
of frozen dignity and threw over her shoulders the cloak trimmed with
blue in which, on the occasion of the Prince's visit, she had sat down
in the middle of the road. That matched the Major's frock-coat.
She hummed a little song as she mounted the few steps to the
garden-room, and stopped just after she had opened the door. She did not
offer to shake hands.
"You wish to see me, Major Flint?" she said, in such a voice as icebergs
might be supposed to use when passing each other by night in the Arctic
seas.
Major Flint certainly looked as if he hated seeing her, instead of
wishing it, for he backed into a corner of the room and dropped his hat.
"Good morning, Miss Mapp," he said. "Very good of you. I--I called."
He clearly had a difficulty in saying what he had come to say, but if he
thought that she was proposing to give him the smallest assistance, he
was in error.
"Yes, you called," said she. "Pray be seated."
He did so; she stood; he got up again.
"I called," said the Major, "I called to express my very deep regret at
my share, or, rather, that I did not take a more active share--I
allowed, in fact, a friend of mine to speak to you in a manner that did
equal discredit----"
Miss Mapp put her head on one side, as if trying to recollect some
trivial and unimportant occurrence.
"Yes?" she said. "What was that?"
"Captain Puffin," began the Major.
Then Miss Mapp remembered it all.
"I hope, Major Flint," she said, "that you will not find it necessary to
mention Captain Puffin's name to me. I wish him nothing but well, but he
and his are no concern of mine. I have the charity to suppose that he
was quite drunk on the occasion to which I imagine you allude.
Intoxication alone could excuse what he said. Let us leave Captain
Puffin out of whatever you have come to say to me."
This was adroit; it compelled the Major to begin all over again.
"I come entirely on my own account," he began.
"I understand," said Miss Mapp, instantly bringing Captain Puffin in
again. "Captain Puffin, now I presume sober, has no regret for what he
said when drunk. I quite see, and I expected no more and no less from
him. Yes. I am afraid I interrupted you."
Major Flint threw his friend overboard like ballast from a bumping
balloon.
"I speak for myself," he said. "I behaved, Miss Mapp, like a--ha--worm.
Defenceless lady, insolent fellow drunk--I allude to Captain P----. I'm
very sorry for my part in it."
Up till this moment Miss Mapp had not made up her mind whether she
intended to forgive him or not; but here she saw how crushing a penalty
she might be able to inflict on Puffin if she forgave the erring and
possibly truly repentant Major. He had already spoken strongly about his
friend's offence, and she could render life supremely nasty for them
both--particularly Puffin--if she made the Major agree that he could
not, if truly sorry, hold further intercourse with him. There would be
no more golf, no more diaries. Besides, if she was observed to be
friendly with the Major again and to cut Captain Puffin, a very natural
interpretation would be that she had learned that in the original
quarrel the Major had been defending her from some odious tongue to the
extent of a challenge, even though he subsequently ran away. Tilling was
quite clever enough to make that inference without any suggestion from
her.... But if she forgave neither of them, they would probably go on
boozing and golfing together, and saying quite dreadful things about
her, and not care very much whether she forgave them or not. Her mind
was made up, and she gave a wan smile.
"Oh, Major Flint," she said, "it hurt me so dreadfully that you should
have stood by and heard that Man--if he is a man--say those awful things
to me and not take my side. It made me feel so lonely. I had always been
such good friends with you, and then you turned your back on me like
that. I didn't know what I had done to deserve it. I lay awake ever so
long."
This was affecting, and he violently rubbed the nap of his hat the wrong
way.... Then Miss Mapp broke into her sunniest smile.
"Oh, I'm so glad you came to say you were sorry!" she said. "Dear Major
Benjy, we're quite friends again."
She dabbed her handkerchief on her eyes.
"So foolish of me!" she said. "Now sit down in my most comfortable chair
and have a cigarette."
Major Flint made a peck at the hand she extended to him, and cleared his
throat to indicate emotion. It really was a great relief to think that
she would not make awful allusions to duels in the middle of
bridge-parties.
"And since you feel as you do about Captain Puffin," she said, "of
course, you won't see anything more of him. You and I are quite one,
aren't we, about that? You have dissociated yourself from him
completely. The fact of your being sorry does that."
It was quite clear to the Major that this condition was involved in his
forgiveness, though that fact, so obvious to Miss Mapp, had not occurred
to him before. Still, he had to accept it, or go unhouseled again. He
could explain to Puffin, under cover of night, or perhaps in
deaf-and-dumb alphabet from his window....
"Infamous, unforgivable behaviour!" he said. "Pah!"
"So glad you feel that," said Miss Mapp, smiling till he saw the entire
row of her fine teeth. "And oh, may I say one little thing more? I feel
this: I feel that the dreadful shock to me of being insulted like that
was quite a lovely little blessing in disguise, now that the effect has
been to put an end to your intimacy with him. I never liked it, and I
liked it less than ever the other night. He's not a fit friend for you.
Oh, I'm so thankful!"
Major Flint saw that for the present he was irrevocably committed to
this clause in the treaty of peace. He could not face seeing it torn up
again, as it certainly would be, if he failed to accept it in its
entirety, nor could he imagine himself leaving the room with a renewal
of hostilities. He would lose his game of golf to-day as it was, for
apart from the fact that he would scarcely have time to change his
clothes (the idea of playing golf in a frock-coat and top-hat was
inconceivable) and catch the 11.20 tram, he could not be seen in
Puffin's company at all. And, indeed, in the future, unless Puffin could
be induced to apologize and Miss Mapp to forgive, he saw, if he was to
play golf at all with his friend, that endless deceptions and
subterfuges were necessary in order to escape detection. One of them
would have to set out ten minutes before the other, and walk to the tram
by some unusual and circuitous route; they would have to play in a
clandestine and furtive manner, parting company before they got to the
club-house; disguises might be needful; there was a peck of difficulties
ahead. But he would have to go into these later; at present he must be
immersed in the rapture of his forgiveness.
"Most generous of you, Miss Elizabeth," he said. "As for that--well, I
won't allude to him again."
Miss Mapp gave a happy little laugh, and having made a further plan,
switched away from the subject of captains and insults with alacrity.
"Look!" she said. "I found these little rosebuds in flower still, though
it is the end of November. Such brave little darlings, aren't they? One
for your button-hole, Major Benjy? And then I must do my little
shoppings or Withers will scold me--Withers is so severe with me, keeps
me in such order! If you are going into the town, will you take me with
you? I will put on my hat."
Requests for the present were certainly commands, and two minutes later
they set forth. Luck, as usual, befriended ability, for there was Puffin
at his door, itching for the Major's return (else they would miss the
tram); and lo! there came stepping along Miss Mapp in her blue-trimmed
cloak, and the Major attired as for marriage--top-hat, frock-coat and
button-hole. She did not look at Puffin and cut him; she did not seem
(with the deceptiveness of appearances) to see him at all, so eager and
agreeable was her conversation with her companion. The Major, so Puffin
thought, attempted to give him some sort of dazed and hunted glance; but
he could not be certain even of that, so swiftly had it to be
transformed into a genial interest in what Miss Mapp was saying, and
Puffin stared open-mouthed after them, for they were terrible as an army
with banners. Then Diva, trundling swiftly out of the fish-shop, came,
as well she might, to a dead halt, observing this absolutely
inexplicable phenomenon.
"Good morning, Diva darling," said Miss Mapp. "Major Benjy and I are
doing our little shopping together. So kind of him, isn't it? and very
naughty of me to take up his time. I told him he ought to be playing
golf. Such a lovely day! Au reservoir, sweet! Oh, and there's the Padre,
Major Benjy! How quickly he walks! Yes, he sees us! And there's Mrs.
Poppit; everybody is enjoying the sunshine. What a beautiful fur coat,
though I should think she found it very heavy and warm. Good morning,
dear Susan! You shopping, too, like Major Benjy and me? How is your dear
Isabel?"
Miss Mapp made the most of that morning; the magnanimity of her
forgiveness earned her incredible dividends. Up and down the High Street
she went, with Major Benjy in attendance, buying grocery, stationery,
gloves, eau-de-Cologne, boot-laces, the "Literary Supplement" of _The
Times_, dried camomile flowers, and every conceivable thing that she
might possibly need in the next week, so that her shopping might be as
protracted as possible. She allowed him (such was her firmness in
"spoiling" him) to carry her shopping-basket, and when that was full,
she decked him like a sacrificial ram with little parcels hung by loops
of string. Sometimes she took him into a shop in case there might be
someone there who had not seen him yet on her leash; sometimes she left
him on the pavement in a prominent position, marking, all the time, just
as if she had been a clinical thermometer, the feverish curiosity that
was burning in Tilling's veins. Only yesterday she had spread the news
of his cowardice broadcast; to-day their comradeship was of the
chattiest and most genial kind. There he was, carrying her basket, and
wearing frock-coat and top-hat and hung with parcels like a
Christmas-tree, spending the entire morning with her instead of golfing
with Puffin. Miss Mapp positively shuddered as she tried to realize what
her state of mind would have been, if she had seen him thus coupled
with Diva. She would have suspected (rightly in all probability) some
loathsome intrigue against herself. And the cream of it was that until
she chose, nobody could possibly find out what had caused this
metamorphosis so paralysing to inquiring intellects, for Major Benjy
would assuredly never tell anyone that there was a reconciliation, due
to his apology for his rudeness, when he had stood by and permitted an
intoxicated Puffin to suggest disgraceful bargains. Tilling--poor
Tilling--would go crazy with suspense as to what it all meant.
Never had there been such a shopping! It was nearly lunch-time when, at
her front door, Major Flint finally stripped himself of her parcels and
her companionship and hobbled home, profusely perspiring, and lame from
so much walking on pavements in tight patent-leather shoes. He was weary
and footsore; he had had no golf, and, though forgiven, was but a wreck.
She had made him ridiculous all the morning with his frock-coat and
top-hat and his porterages, and if forgiveness entailed any more of
these nightmare sacraments of friendliness, he felt that he would be
unable to endure the fatiguing accessories of the regenerate state. He
hung up his top-hat and wiped his wet and throbbing head; he kicked off
his shoes and shed his frock-coat, and furiously qui-hied for a whisky
and soda and lunch.
His physical restoration was accompanied by a quickening of dismay at
the general prospect. What (to put it succinctly) was life worth, even
when unharassed by allusions to duels, without the solace of golf,
quarrels and diaries in the companionship of Puffin? He hated Puffin--no
one more so--but he could not possibly get on without him, and it was
entirely due to Puffin that he had spent so outrageous a morning, for
Puffin, seeking to silence Miss Mapp by his intoxicated bargain, had
been the prime cause of all this misery. He could not even, for fear of
that all-seeing eye in Miss Mapp's garden-room, go across to the house
of the unforgiven sea-captain, and by a judicious recital of his woes
induce him to beg Miss Mapp's forgiveness instantly. He would have to
wait till the kindly darkness fell.... "Mere slavery!" he exclaimed with
passion.
A tap at his sitting-room door interrupted the chain of these melancholy
reflections, and his permission to enter was responded to by Puffin
himself. The Major bounced from his seat.
"You mustn't stop here," he said in a low voice, as if afraid that he
might be overheard. "Miss Mapp may have seen you come in."
Puffin laughed shrilly.
"Why, of course she did," he gaily assented. "She was at her window all
right. Ancient lights, I shall call her. What's this all about now?"
"You must go back," said Major Flint agitatedly. "She must see you go
back. I can't explain now. But I'll come across after dinner when it's
dark. Go; don't wait."
He positively hustled the mystified Puffin out of the house, and Miss
Mapp's face, which had grown sharp and pointed with doubts and
suspicions when she observed him enter Major Benjy's house, dimpled, as
she saw him return, into her sunniest smiles. "Dear Major Benjy," she
said, "he has refused to see him," and she cut the string of the large
cardboard box which had just arrived from the dyer's with the most
pleasurable anticipations....
Well, it was certainly very magnificent, and Miss Greele was quite
right, for there was not the faintest tinge to show that it had
originally been kingfisher-blue. She had not quite realized how
brilliant crimson-lake was in the piece; it seemed almost to cast a
ruddy glow on the very ceiling, and the fact that she had caused the
orange chiffon with which the neck and sleeves were trimmed to be dyed
black (following the exquisite taste of Mrs. Titus Trout) only threw the
splendour of the rest into more dazzling radiance. Kingfisher-blue would
appear quite ghostly and corpse-like in its neighbourhood; and painful
though that would be for Diva, it would, as all her well-wishers must
hope, be a lesson to her not to indulge in such garishness. She should
be taught her lesson (D.V.), thought Miss Mapp, at Susan's bridge-party
to-morrow evening. Captain Puffin was being taught a lesson, too, for we
are never too old to learn, or, for that matter, to teach.
Though the night was dark and moonless, there was an inconveniently
brilliant gas-lamp close to the Major's door, and that strategist,
carrying his round roll of diaries, much the shape of a bottle, under
his coat, went about half-past nine that evening to look at the
rain-gutter which had been weeping into his yard, and let himself out of
the back-door round the corner. From there he went down past the
fishmonger's, crossed the road, and doubled back again up Puffin's side
of the street, which was not so vividly illuminated, though he took the
precaution of making himself little with bent knees, and of limping.
Puffin was already warming himself over the fire and imbibing Roman
roads, and was disposed to be hilarious over the Major's shopping.
"But why top-hat and frock-coat, Major?" he asked. "Another visit of the
Prince of Wales, I asked myself, or the Voice that breathed o'er Eden?
Have a drink--one of mine, I mean? I owe you a drink for the good laugh
you gave me."
Had it not been for this generosity and the need of getting on the right
side of Puffin, Major Flint would certainly have resented such clumsy
levity, but this double consideration caused him to take it with
unwonted good-humour. His attempt to laugh, indeed, sounded a little
hollow, but that is the habit of self-directed merriment.
"Well, I allow it must have seemed amusing," he said. "The fact was that
I thought she would appreciate my putting a little ceremony into my
errand of apology, and then she whisked me off shopping before I could
go and change."
"Kiss and friends again, then?" asked Puffin.
The Major grew a little stately over this.
"No such familiarity passed," he said. "But she accepted my regrets
with--ha--the most gracious generosity. A fine-spirited woman, sir;
you'll find the same."
"I might if I looked for it," said Puffin. "But why should I want to
make it up? You've done that, and that prevents her talking about
duelling and early trains. She can't mock at me because of you. You
might pass me back my bottle, if you've taken your drink."
The Major reluctantly did so.
"You must please yourself, old boy," he said. "It's your business, and
no one's ever said that Benjy Flint interfered in another man's affairs.
But I trust you will do what good feeling indicates. I hope you value
our jolly games of golf and our pleasant evenings sufficiently highly."
"Eh! how's that?" asked Puffin. "You going to cut me too?"
The Major sat down and put his large feet on the fender. "Tact and
diplomacy, Benjy, my boy," he reminded himself.
"Ha! That's what I like," he said, "a good fire and a friend, and the
rest of the world may go hang. There's no question of cutting, old man;
I needn't tell you that--but we must have one of our good talks. For
instance, I very unceremoniously turned you out of my house this
afternoon, and I owe you an explanation of that. I'll give it you in one
word: Miss Mapp saw you come in. She didn't see me come in here this
evening--ha! ha!--and that's why I can sit at my ease. But if she
knew----"
Puffin guessed.
"What has happened, Major, is that you've thrown me over for Miss Mapp,"
he observed.
"No, sir, I have not," said the Major with emphasis. "Should I be
sitting here and drinking your whisky if I had? But this morning, after
that lady had accepted my regret for my share in what occurred the other
night, she assumed that since I condemned my own conduct unreservedly, I
must equally condemn yours. It really was like a conjuring trick; the
thing was done before I knew anything about it. And before I'd had time
to say, 'Hold on a bit,' I was being led up and down the High Street,
carrying as much merchandise as a drove of camels. God, sir, I suffered
this morning; you don't seem to realize that I suffered; I couldn't
stand any more mornings like that: I haven't the stamina."
"A powerful woman," said Puffin reflectively.
"You may well say that," observed Major Flint. "That is finely said. A
powerful woman she is, with a powerful tongue, and able to be powerful
nasty, and if she sees you and me on friendly terms again, she'll turn
the full hose on to us both unless you make it up with her."
"H'm, yes. But as likely as not she'll tell me and my apologies to go
hang."
"Have a try, old man," said the Major encouragingly.
Puffin looked at his whisky-bottle.
"Help yourself, Major," he said. "I think you'll have to help me out,
you know. Go and interview her: see if there's a chance of my favourable
reception."
"No, sir," said the Major firmly, "I will not run the risk of another
morning's shopping in the High Street."
"You needn't. Watch till she comes back from her shopping to-morrow."
Major Benjy clearly did not like the prospect at all, but Puffin grew
firmer and firmer in his absolute refusal to lay himself open to rebuff,
and presently, they came to an agreement that the Major was to go on his
ambassadorial errand next morning. That being settled, the still
undecided point about the worm-cast gave rise to a good deal of heat,
until, it being discovered that the window was open, and that their
voices might easily carry as far as the garden-room, they made malignant
rejoinders to each other in whispers. But it was impossible to go on
quarrelling for long in so confidential a manner, and the disagreement
was deferred to a more convenient occasion. It was late when the Major
left, and after putting out the light in Puffin's hall, so that he
should not be silhouetted against it, he slid into the darkness, and
reached his own door by a subtle detour.
Miss Mapp had a good deal of division of her swift mind, when, next
morning, she learned the nature of Major Benjy's second errand. If she,
like Mr. Wyse, was to encourage Puffin to hope that she would accept his
apologies, she would be obliged to remit all further punishment of him,
and allow him to consort with his friend again. It was difficult to
forgo the pleasure of his chastisement, but, on the other hand, it was
just possible that the Major might break away, and, whether she liked it
or not (and she would not), refuse permanently to give up Puffin's
society. That would be awkward since she had publicly paraded her
reconciliation with him. What further inclined her to clemency, was that
this very evening the crimson-lake tea-gown would shed its effulgence
over Mrs. Poppit's bridge-party, and Diva would never want to hear the
word "kingfisher" again. That was enough to put anybody in a good
temper. So the diplomatist returned to the miscreant with the glad
tidings that Miss Mapp would hear his supplication with a favourable
ear, and she took up a stately position in the garden-room, which she
selected as audience chamber, near the bell so that she could ring for
Withers if necessary.
* * * * *
Miss Mapp's mercy was largely tempered with justice, and she proposed,
in spite of the leniency which she would eventually exhibit, to give
Puffin "what for," first. She had not for him, as for Major Benjy, that
feminine weakness which had made it a positive luxury to forgive him:
she never even thought of Puffin as Captain Dicky, far less let the
pretty endearment slip off her tongue accidentally, and the luxury which
she anticipated from the interview was that of administering a quantity
of hard slaps. She had appointed half-past twelve as the hour for his
suffering, so that he must go without his golf again.
She put down the book she was reading when he appeared, and gazed at him
stonily without speech. He limped into the middle of the room. This
might be forgiveness, but it did not look like it, and he wondered
whether she had got him here on false pretences.
"Good morning," said he.
Miss Mapp inclined her head. Silence was gold.
"I understood from Major Flint----" began Puffin.
Speech could be gold too.
"If," said Miss Mapp, "you have come to speak about Major Flint you have
wasted your time. And mine!"
(How different from Major Benjy, she thought. What a shrimp!)
The shrimp gave a slight gasp. The thing had got to be done, and the
sooner he was out of range of this powerful woman the better.
"I am extremely sorry for what I said to you the other night," he said.
"I am glad you are sorry," said Miss Mapp.
"I offer you my apologies for what I said," continued Puffin.
The whip whistled.
"When you spoke to me on the occasion to which you refer," said Miss
Mapp, "I saw of course at once that you were not in a condition to speak
to anybody. I instantly did you that justice, for I am just to
everybody. I paid no more attention to what you said than I should have
paid to any tipsy vagabond in the slums. I daresay you hardly remember
what you said, so that before I hear your expression of regret, I will
remind you of it. You threatened, unless I promised to tell nobody in
what a disgusting condition you were, to say that I was tipsy. Elizabeth
Mapp tipsy! That was what you said, Captain Puffin."
Captain Puffin turned extremely red. ("Now the shrimp's being boiled,"
thought Miss Mapp.)
"I can't do more than apologize," said he. He did not know whether he
was angrier with his ambassador or her.
"Did you say you couldn't do 'more,'" said Miss Mapp with an air of
great interest. "How curious! I should have thought you couldn't have
done less."
"Well, what more can I do?" asked he.
"If you think," said Miss Mapp, "that you hurt me by your conduct that
night, you are vastly mistaken. And if you think you can do no more than
apologize, I will teach you better. You can make an effort, Captain
Puffin, to break with your deplorable habits, to try to get back a
little of the self-respect, if you ever had any, which you have lost.
You can cease trying, oh, so unsuccessfully, to drag Major Benjy down to
your level. That's what you can do."
She let these withering observations blight him.
"I accept your apologies," she said. "I hope you will do better in the
future, Captain Puffin, and I shall look anxiously for signs of
improvement. We will meet with politeness and friendliness when we are
brought together and I will do my best to wipe all remembrance of your
tipsy impertinence from my mind. And you must do your best too. You are
not young, and engrained habits are difficult to get rid of. But do not
despair, Captain Puffin. And now I will ring for Withers and she will
show you out."
She rang the bell, and gave a sample of her generous oblivion.
"And we meet, do we not, this evening at Mrs. Poppit's?" she said,
looking not at him, but about a foot above his head. "Such pleasant
evenings one always has there, I hope it will not be a wet evening, but
the glass is sadly down. Oh, Withers, Captain Puffin is going. Good
morning, Captain Puffin. Such a pleasure!"
Miss Mapp hummed a rollicking little tune as she observed him totter
down the street.
"There!" she said, and had a glass of Burgundy for lunch as a treat.