"Peace on earth and mercy mild," sang Miss Mapp, holding her head back
with her uvula clearly visible. She sat in her usual seat close below
the pulpit, and the sun streaming in through a stained glass window
opposite made her face of all colours, like Joseph's coat. Not knowing
how it looked from outside, she pictured to herself a sort of celestial
radiance coming from within, though Diva, sitting opposite, was
reminded of the iridescent hues observable on cold boiled beef. But
then, Miss Mapp had registered the fact that Diva's notion of singing
alto was to follow the trebles at the uniform distance of a minor third
below, so that matters were about square between them. She wondered
between the verses if she could say something very tactful to Diva,
which might before next Christmas induce her not to make that noise....
Major Flint came in just before the first hymn was over, and held his
top-hat before his face by way of praying in secret, before he opened
his hymn-book. A piece of loose holly fell down from the window ledge
above him on the exact middle of his head, and the jump that he gave
was, considering his baldness, quite justifiable. Captain Puffin, Miss
Mapp was sorry to see, was not there at all. But he had been unwell
lately with attacks of dizziness, one of which had caused him, in the
last game of golf that he had played, to fall down on the eleventh green
and groan. If these attacks were not due to his lack of perseverance, no
right-minded person could fail to be very sorry for him.
There was a good deal more peace on earth as regards Tilling than might
have been expected considering what the week immediately before
Christmas had been like. A picture by Miss Coles (who had greatly
dropped out of society lately, owing to her odd ways) called "Adam,"
which was certainly Mr. Hopkins (though no one could have guessed) had
appeared for sale in the window of a dealer in pictures and curios, but
had been withdrawn from public view at Miss Mapp's personal intercession
and her revelation of whom, unlikely as it sounded, the picture
represented. The unchivalrous dealer had told the artist the history of
its withdrawal, and it had come to Miss Mapp's ears (among many other
things) that quaint Irene had imitated the scene of intercession with
such piercing fidelity that her servant, Lucy-Eve, had nearly died of
laughing. Then there had been clandestine bridge at Mr. Wyse's house on
three consecutive days, and on none of these occasions was Miss Mapp
asked to continue the instruction which she had professed herself
perfectly willing to give to the Contessa. The Contessa, in fact--there
seemed to be no doubt about it--had declared that she would sooner not
play bridge at all than play with Miss Mapp, because the effort of not
laughing would put an un-warrantable strain on those muscles which
prevented you from doing so.... Then the Contessa had gone to tea quite
alone with Major Benjy, and though her shrill and senseless monologue
was clearly audible in the street as Miss Mapp went by to post her
letter again, the Major's Dominic had stoutly denied that he was in, and
the notion that the Contessa was haranguing all by herself in his
drawing-room was too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment.... And
Diva's dyed dress had turned out so well that Miss Mapp gnashed her
teeth at the thought that she had not had hers dyed instead. With some
green chiffon round the neck, even Diva looked quite distinguished--for
Diva.
Then, quite suddenly, an angel of Peace had descended on the distracted
garden-room, for the Poppits, the Contessa and Mr. Wyse all went away to
spend Christmas and the New Year with the Wyses of Whitchurch. It was
probable that the Contessa would then continue a round of visits with
all that coroneted luggage, and leave for Italy again without revisiting
Tilling. She had behaved as if that was the case, for taking advantage
of a fine afternoon, she had borrowed the Royce and whirled round the
town on a series of calls, leaving P.P.C. cards everywhere, and saying
only (so Miss Mapp gathered from Withers) "Your mistress not in? So
sorry," and had driven away before Withers could get out the information
that her mistress was very much in, for she had a bad cold.
But there were the P.P.C. cards, and the Wyses with their future
connections were going to Whitchurch, and after a few hours of rage
against all that had been going on, without revenge being now possible,
and of reaction after the excitement of it, a different reaction set in.
Odd and unlikely as it would have appeared a month or two earlier, when
Tilling was seething with duels, it was a fact that it was possible to
have too much excitement. Ever since the Contessa had arrived, she had
been like an active volcano planted down among dangerously inflammable
elements, and the removal of it was really a matter of relief. Miss Mapp
felt that she would be dealing again with materials whose properties she
knew, and since, no doubt, the strain of Susan's marriage would soon
follow, it was a merciful dispensation that the removal of the volcano
granted Tilling a short restorative pause. The young couple would be
back before long, and with Susan's approaching elevation certainly going
to her head, and making her talk in a manner wholly intolerable about
the grandeur of the Wyses of Whitchurch, it was a boon to be allowed to
recuperate for a little, before settling to work afresh to combat
Susan's pretensions. There was no fear of being dull: for plenty of
things had been going on in Tilling before the Contessa flared on the
High Street, and plenty of things would continue to go on after she had
taken her explosions elsewhere.
By the time that the second lesson was being read the sun had shifted
from Miss Mapp's face, and enabled her to see how ghastly dear Evie
looked when focussed under the blue robe of Jonah, who was climbing out
of the whale. She had had her disappointments to contend with, for the
Contessa had never really grasped at all who she was. Sometimes she
mistook her for Irene, sometimes she did not seem to see her, but never
had she appeared fully to identify her as Mr. Bartlett's wee wifey. But
then, dear Evie was very insignificant even when she squeaked her
loudest. Her best friends, among whom was Miss Mapp, would not deny
that. She had been wilted by non-recognition; she would recover again,
now that they were all left to themselves.
The sermon contained many repetitions and a quantity of split
infinitives. The Padre had once openly stated that Shakespeare was good
enough for him, and that Shakespeare was guilty of many split
infinitives. On that occasion there had nearly been a breach between him
and Mistress Mapp, for Mistress Mapp had said, "But then you are not
Shakespeare, dear Padre." And he could find nothing better to reply than
"Hoots!".... There was nothing more of interest about the sermon.
At the end of the service Miss Mapp lingered in the church looking at
the lovely decorations of holly and laurel, for which she was so largely
responsible, until her instinct assured her that everybody else had
shaken hands and was wondering what to say next about Christmas. Then,
just then, she hurried out.
They were all there, and she came like the late and honoured guest (Poor
Diva).
"Diva, darling," she said. "Merry Christmas! And Evie! And the Padre.
Padre dear, thank you for your sermon! And Major Benjy! Merry Christmas,
Major Benjy. What a small company we are, but not the less Christmassy.
No Mr. Wyse, no Susan, no Isabel. Oh, and no Captain Puffin. Not quite
well again, Major Benjy? Tell me about him. Those dreadful fits of
dizziness. So hard to understand."
She beautifully succeeded in detaching the Major from the rest. With the
peace that had descended on Tilling, she had forgiven him for having
been made a fool of by the Contessa.
"I'm anxious about my friend Puffin," he said. "Not at all up to the
mark. Most depressed. I told him he had no business to be depressed.
It's selfish to be depressed, I said. If we were all depressed it would
be a dreary world, Miss Elizabeth. He's sent for the doctor. I was to
have had a round of golf with Puffin this afternoon, but he doesn't feel
up to it. It would have done him much more good than a host of doctors."
"Oh, I wish I could play golf, and not disappoint you of your round,
Major Benjy," said she.
Major Benjy seemed rather to recoil from the thought. He did not
profess, at any rate, any sympathetic regret.
"And we were going to have had our Christmas dinner together to-night,"
he said, "and spend a jolly evening afterwards."
"I'm sure quiet is the best thing for Captain Puffin with his
dizziness," said Miss Mapp firmly.
A sudden audacity seized her. Here was the Major feeling lonely as
regards his Christmas evening: here was she delighted that he should not
spend it "jollily" with Captain Puffin ... and there was plenty of
plum-pudding.
"Come and have your dinner with me," she said. "I'm alone too."
He shook his head.
"Very kind of you, I'm sure, Miss Elizabeth," he said, "but I think I'll
hold myself in readiness to go across to poor old Puffin, if he feels up
to it. I feel lost without my friend Puffin."
"But you must have no jolly evening, Major Benjy," she said. "So bad for
him. A little soup and a good night's rest. That's the best thing.
Perhaps he would like me to go in and read to him. I will gladly. Tell
him so from me. And if you find he doesn't want anybody, not even you,
well, there's a slice of plum-pudding at your neighbour's, and such a
warm welcome."
She stood on the steps of her house, which in summer were so crowded
with sketchers, and would have kissed her hand to him had not Diva been
following close behind, for even on Christmas Day poor Diva was capable
of finding something ill-natured to say about the most tender and
womanly action ... and Miss Mapp let herself into her house with only a
little wave of her hand....
Somehow the idea that Major Benjy was feeling lonely and missing the
quarrelsome society of his debauched friend was not entirely unpleasing
to her. It was odd that there should be anybody who missed Captain
Puffin. Who would not sooner play golf all alone (if that was possible)
than with him, or spend an evening alone rather than with his
companionship? But if Captain Puffin had to be missed, she would
certainly have chosen Major Benjy to be the person who missed him.
Without wishing Captain Puffin any unpleasant experience, she would have
borne with equanimity the news of his settled melancholia, or his
permanent dizziness, for Major Benjy with his bright robustness was not
the sort of man to prove a willing comrade to a chronically dizzy or
melancholic friend. Nor would it be right that he should be so. Men in
the prime of life were not meant for that. Nor were they meant to be the
victims of designing women, even though Wyses of Whitchurch.... He was
saved from that by their most opportune departure.
In spite of her readiness to be interrupted at any moment, Miss Mapp
spent a solitary evening. She had pulled a cracker with Withers, and
severely jarred a tooth over a threepenny-piece in the plum-pudding, but
there had been no other events. Once or twice, in order to see what the
night was like, she had gone to the window of the garden-room, and been
aware that there was a light in Major Benjy's house, but when half-past
ten struck, she had despaired of company and gone to bed. A little
carol-singing in the streets gave her a Christmas feeling, and she hoped
that the singers got a nice supper somewhere.
Miss Mapp did not feel as genial as usual when she came down to
breakfast next day, and omitted to say good-morning to her rainbow of
piggies. She had run short of wool for her knitting, and Boxing Day
appeared to her a very ill-advised institution. You would have imagined,
thought Miss Mapp, as she began cracking her egg, that the tradespeople
had had enough relaxation on Christmas Day, especially when, as on this
occasion, it was immediately preceded by Sunday, and would have been all
the better for getting to work again. She never relaxed her efforts for
a single day in the year, and why----
An overpowering knocking on her front-door caused her to stop cracking
her egg. That imperious summons was succeeded by but a moment of
silence, and then it began again. She heard the hurried step of Withers
across the hall, and almost before she could have been supposed to reach
the front door, Diva burst into the room.
"Dead!" she said. "In his soup. Captain Puffin. Can't wait!"
She whirled out again and the front door banged.
Miss Mapp ate her egg in three mouthfuls, had no marmalade at all, and
putting on the Prince of Wales's cloak tripped down into the High
Street. Though all shops were shut, Evie was there with her
market-basket, eagerly listening to what Mrs. Brace, the doctor's wife,
was communicating. Though Mrs. Brace was not, strictly speaking, "in
society," Miss Mapp waived all social distinctions, and pressed her hand
with a mournful smile.
"Is it all too terribly true?" she asked.
Mrs. Brace did not take the smallest notice of her, and, dropping her
voice, spoke to Evie in tones so low that Miss Mapp could not catch a
single syllable except the word soup, which seemed to imply that Diva
had got hold of some correct news at last. Evie gave a shrill little
scream at the concluding words, whatever they were, as Mrs. Brace
hurried away.
Miss Mapp firmly cornered Evie, and heard what had happened. Captain
Puffin had gone up to bed last night, not feeling well, without having
any dinner. But he had told Mrs. Gashly to make him some soup, and he
would not want anything else. His parlour-maid had brought it to him,
and had soon afterwards opened the door to Major Flint, who, learning
that his friend had gone to bed, went away. She called her master in the
morning, and found him sitting, still dressed, with his face in the soup
which he had poured out into a deep soup-plate. This was very odd, and
she had called Mrs. Gashly. They settled that he was dead, and rang up
the doctor, who agreed with them. It was clear that Captain Puffin had
had a stroke of some sort, and had fallen forward into the soup which he
had just poured out....
"But he didn't die of his stroke," said Evie in a strangled whisper. "He
was drowned."
"Drowned, dear?" said Miss Mapp.
"Yes. Lungs were full of ox-tail, oh, dear me! A stroke first, and he
fell forward with his face in his soup-plate and got his nose and mouth
quite covered with the soup. He was drowned. All on dry land and in his
bedroom. Too terrible. What dangers we are all in!"
She gave a loud squeak and escaped, to tell her husband.
* * * * *
Diva had finished calling on everybody, and approached rapidly.
"He must have died of a stroke," said Diva. "Very much depressed lately.
That precedes a stroke."
"Oh, then, haven't you heard, dear?" said Miss Mapp. "It is all too
terrible! On Christmas Day, too!"
"Suicide?" asked Diva. "Oh, how shocking!"
"No, dear. It was like this...."
* * * * *
Miss Mapp got back to her house long before she usually left it. Her
cook came up with the proposed bill of fare for the day.
"That will do for lunch," said Miss Mapp. "But not soup in the evening.
A little fish from what was left over yesterday, and some toasted
cheese. That will be plenty. Just a tray."
Miss Mapp went to the garden-room and sat at her window.
"All so sudden," she said to herself.
She sighed.
"I daresay there may have been much that was good in Captain Puffin,"
she thought, "that we knew nothing about."
She wore a wintry smile.
"Major Benjy will feel very lonely," she said.
EPILOGUE
Miss Mapp went to the garden-room and sat at her window....
It was a warm, bright day of February, and a butterfly was enjoying
itself in the pale sunshine on the other window, and perhaps (so Miss
Mapp sympathetically interpreted its feelings) was rather annoyed that
it could not fly away through the pane. It was not a white butterfly,
but a tortoise-shell, very pretty, and in order to let it enjoy itself
more, she opened the window and it fluttered out into the garden. Before
it had flown many yards, a starling ate most of it up, so the starling
enjoyed itself too.
Miss Mapp fully shared in the pleasure first of the tortoise-shell and
then of the starling, for she was enjoying herself very much too, though
her left wrist was terribly stiff. But Major Benjy was so cruel: he
insisted on her learning that turn of the wrist which was so important
in golf.
"Upon my word, you've got it now, Miss Elizabeth," he had said to her
yesterday, and then made her do it all over again fifty times more.
("Such a bully!") Sometimes she struck the ground, sometimes she struck
the ball, sometimes she struck the air. But he had been very much
pleased with her. And she was very much pleased with him. She forgot
about the butterfly and remembered the starling.
It was idle to deny that the last six weeks had been a terrific strain,
and the strain on her left wrist was nothing to them. The worst tension
of all, perhaps, was when Diva had bounced in with the news that the
Contessa was coming back. That was so like Diva: the only foundation for
the report proved to be that Figgis had said to her Janet that Mr. Wyse
was coming back, and either Janet had misunderstood Figgis, or Diva
(far more probably) had misunderstood Janet, and Miss Mapp only hoped
that Diva had not done so on purpose, though it looked like it. Stupid
as poor Diva undoubtedly was, it was hard for Charity itself to believe
that she had thought that Janet really said that. But when this report
proved to be totally unfounded, Miss Mapp rose to the occasion, and said
that Diva had spoken out of stupidity and not out of malice towards
her....
Then in due course Mr. Wyse had come back and the two Poppits had come
back, and only three days ago one Poppit had become a Wyse, and they had
all three gone for a motor-tour on the Continent in the Royce. Very
likely they would go as far south as Capri, and Susan would stay with
her new grand Italian connections. What she would be like when she got
back Miss Mapp forbore to conjecture, since it was no use anticipating
trouble; but Susan had been so grandiose about the Wyses, multiplying
their incomes and their acreage by fifteen or twenty, so Miss Mapp
conjectured, and talking so much about county families, that the
liveliest imagination failed to picture what she would make of the
Faragliones. She already alluded to the Count as "My brother-in-law
Cecco Faraglione," but had luckily heard Diva say "Faradiddleony" in a
loud aside, which had made her a little more reticent. Susan had taken
the insignia of the Member of the British Empire with her, as she at
once conceived the idea of being presented to the Queen of Italy by
Amelia, and going to a court ball, and Isabel had taken her manuscript
book of Malaprops and Spoonerisms. If she put down all the Italian
malaprops that Mrs. Wyse would commit, it was likely that she would
bring back two volumes instead of one.
Though all these grandeurs were so rightly irritating, the departure of
the "young couple" and Isabel had left Tilling, already shocked and
shattered by the death of Captain Puffin, rather flat and purposeless.
Miss Mapp alone refused to be flat, and had never been so full of
purpose. She felt that it would be unpardonably selfish of her if she
regarded for a moment her own loss, when there was one in Tilling who
suffered so much more keenly, and she set herself with admirable
singleness of purpose to restore Major Benjy's zest in life, and fill
the gap. She wanted no assistance from others in this: Diva, for
instance, with her jerky ways would be only too apt to jar on him, and
her black dress might remind him of his loss if Miss Mapp had asked her
to go shares in the task of making the Major's evenings less lonely.
Also the weather, during the whole of January, was particularly
inclement, and it would have been too much to expect of Diva to come all
the way up the hill in the wet, while it was but a step from the Major's
door to her own. So there was little or nothing in the way of
winter-bridge as far as Miss Mapp and the Major were concerned. Piquet
with a single sympathetic companion who did not mind being rubiconned at
threepence a hundred was as much as he was up to at present.
With the end of the month a balmy foretaste of spring (such as had
encouraged the tortoiseshell butterfly to hope) set in, and the Major
used to drop in after breakfast and stroll round the garden with her,
smoking his pipe. Miss Mapp's sweet snowdrops had begun to appear, and
green spikes of crocuses pricked the black earth, and the sparrows were
having such fun in the creepers. Then one day the Major, who was going
out to catch the 11.20 tram, had a "golf-stick," as Miss Mapp so
foolishly called it, with him, and a golf-ball, and after making a
dreadful hole in her lawn, she had hit the ball so hard that it
rebounded from the brick-wall, which was quite a long way off, and came
back to her very feet, as if asking to be hit again by the
golf-stick--no, golf-club. She learned to keep her wonderfully observant
eye on the ball and bought one of her own. The Major lent her a
mashie--and before anyone would have thought it possible, she had
learned to propel her ball right over the bed where the snowdrops grew,
without beheading any of them in its passage. It was the turn of the
wrist that did that, and Withers cleaned the dear little mashie
afterwards, and put it safely in the corner of the garden-room.
To-day was to be epoch-making. They were to go out to the real links by
the 11.20 tram (consecrated by so many memories), and he was to call for
her at eleven. He had qui-hied for porridge fully an hour ago.
After letting out the tortoise-shell butterfly from the window looking
into the garden, she moved across to the post of observation on the
street, and arranged snowdrops in a little glass vase. There were a few
over when that was full, and she saw that a reel of cotton was close at
hand, in case she had an idea of what to do with the remainder. Eleven
o'clock chimed from the church, and on the stroke she saw him coming up
the few yards of street that separated his door from hers. So punctual!
So manly!
Diva was careering about the High Street as they walked along it, and
Miss Mapp kissed her hand to her.
"Off to play golf, darling," she said. "Is that not grand? Au
reservoir."
Diva had not missed seeing the snowdrops in the Major's button-hole, and
stood stupefied for a moment at this news. Then she caught sight of
Evie, and shot across the street to communicate her suspicions. Quaint
Irene joined then and the Padre.
"Snowdrops, i'fegs!" said he....
_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Notes and Errata |
| |
| The following words were found in both hyphenated and |
| unhyphenated form in the text. The number of instances of |
| each is given in parentheses. |
| |
| |book-case (4) |bookcase (1) | |
| |dress-maker's (1) |dress-maker's (1) | |
| |dress-maker (1) |dress-maker (1) | |
| |eye-glass (4) |eyeglass (4) | |
| |parlour-maid (3) |parlourmaid (5) | |
| |tea-gown (9) |teagown (2) | |
| |tip-toed (1) |tiptoed (2) | |
| |tortoise-shell (3) |tortoiseshell (1) | |
| |
| The following typographical errors were corrected: |
| |
| |Error |Correction | |
| |appraoch |approach | |
| |aleady |already | |
| |Consciousnness |Consciousness | |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+