Miss Mapp, E. F. Benson [chromebook ebook reader txt] 📗

“Upon my word,” said the Major, “I never saw anything more beautiful than that gown, Miss Elizabeth. Straight from Paris, eh? Paris in every line of it.”

“Oh, Major Benjy,” said Elizabeth. “You’re all making fun of me and my simple little frock. I’m getting quite shy. Just a bit of old stuff that I had. But so nice of you to like it. I wonder where Diva is. We shall have to scold her for being late. Ah—she shan’t be scolded. Diva, darl——”

The endearing word froze on Miss Mapp’s lips and she turned deadly white. In the doorway, in equal fury and dismay, stood Diva, dressed in precisely the same staggeringly lovely costume as her hostess. Had Diva and Miss Greele put their heads together too? Had Diva got a bit of old stuff …?

Miss Mapp pulled herself together first and moistened her dry lips.

“So sweet of you to look in, dear,” she said. “Shall we cut?”

Naturally the malice of cards decreed that Miss Mapp and Diva should sit next each other as adversaries at the same table, and the combined effect of two lots of kingfisher-blue was blinding. Complete silence on every subject connected, however remotely, with dress was, of course, the only line for correct diplomacy to pursue, but then Major Benjy was not diplomatic, only gallant.

“Never saw such stunning gowns, eh, Padre?” he said. “Dear me, they are very much alike too, aren’t they? Pair of exquisite sisters.”

[179] It would be hard to say which of the two found this speech the more provocative of rage, for while Diva was four years younger than Miss Mapp, Miss Mapp was four inches taller than Diva. She cut the cards to her sister with a hand that trembled so much that she had to do it again, and Diva could scarcely deal.

Mr. Wyse frankly confessed the next day when, at one o’clock, Elizabeth found herself the first arrival at his house, that he had been very self-indulgent.

“I have given myself a treat, dear Miss Mapp,” he said. “I have asked three entrancing ladies to share my humble meal with me, and have provided—is it not shocking of me?—nobody else to meet them. Your pardon, dear lady, for my greediness.”

Now this was admirably done. Elizabeth knew very well why two out of the three men in Tilling had not been asked (very gratifying, that reason was), and with the true refinement of which Mr. Wyse was so amply possessed, where he was taking all the blame on himself, and putting it so prettily. She bestowed her widest smile on him.

“Oh, Mr. Wyse,” she said. “We shall all quarrel over you.”

Not until Miss Mapp had spoken did she perceive how subtle her words were. They seemed to bracket herself and Mr. Wyse together: all the men (two out of the three, at any rate) had been quarrelling over her, and now there seemed a very fair prospect of three of the women quarreling over Mr. Wyse…

Without being in the least effeminate, Mr. Wyse this morning looked rather like a modern Troubadour. He had a velveteen coat on, a soft, fluffy, mushy tie which looked[180] as if made of Shirley poppies, very neat knickerbockers, brown stockings with blobs, like the fruit of plane trees, dependent from elaborate “tops,” and shoes with a cascade of leather frilling covering the laces. He might almost equally well be about to play golf over putting-holes on the lawn as the guitar. He made a gesture of polished, polite dissent, not contradicting, yet hardly accepting this tribute, remitting it perhaps, just as the King when he enters the City of London touches the sword of the Lord Mayor and tells him to keep it…

“So pleasant to be in Tilling again,” he said. “We shall have a cosy, busy winter, I hope. You, I know, Miss Mapp, are always busy.”

“The day is never long enough for me,” said Elizabeth enthusiastically. “What with my household duties in the morning, and my garden, and our pleasant little gatherings, it is always bed-time too soon. I want to read a great deal this winter, too.”

Diva (at the sight of whom Elizabeth had to make a strong effort of self-control) here came in, together with Mrs. Poppit, and the party was complete. Elizabeth would have been willing to bet that, in spite of the warmness of the morning, Susan would have on her sable coat, and though, technically, she would have lost, she more than won morally, for Mr. Wyse’s repeated speeches about his greediness were hardly out of his mouth when she discovered that she had left her handkerchief in the pocket of her sable coat, which she had put over the back of a conspicuous chair in the hall. Figgis, however, came in at the moment to say that lunch was ready, and she delayed them all very much by a long, ineffectual search for it, during which Figgis, with a visible effort, held up the sable coat, so that it was displayed to the utmost advantage.[181] And then, only fancy, Susan discovered that it was in her sable muff all the time!

All three ladies were on tenterhooks of anxiety as to who was to be placed on Mr. Wyse’s right, who on his left, and who would be given only the place between two other women. But his tact was equal to anything.

“Miss Mapp,” he said, “will you honour me by taking the head of my table and be hostess for me? Only I must have that vase of flowers removed, Figgis; I can look at my flowers when Miss Mapp is not here. Now, what have we got for breakfast—lunch, I should say?”

The macaroni which Mr. Wyse had brought back with him from Naples naturally led on to Italian subjects, and the general scepticism about the Contessa di Faraglione had a staggering blow dealt it.

“My sister,” began Mr. Wyse (and by a swift sucking motion, Diva drew into her mouth several serpents of dependent macaroni in order to be able to listen better without this agitating distraction), “my sister, I hope, will come to England this winter, and spend several weeks with me.” (Sensation.)

“And the Count?” asked Diva, having swallowed the serpents.

“I fear not; Cecco—Francesco, you know—is a great stay-at-home. Amelia is looking forward very much to seeing Tilling. I shall insist on her making a long stay here, before she visits our relations at Whitchurch.”

Elizabeth found herself reserving judgment. She would believe in the Contessa Faraglione—no one more firmly—when she saw her, and had reasonable proofs of her identity.

[182] “Delightful!” she said, abandoning with regret the fruitless pursuit with a fork of the few last serpents that writhed on her plate. “What an addition to our society! We shall all do our best to spoil her, Mr. Wyse. When do you expect her?”

“Early in December. You must be very kind to her, dear ladies. She is an insatiable bridge-player. She has heard much of the great players she will meet here.”

That decided Mrs. Poppit. She would join the correspondence class conducted by “Little Slam,” in “Cosy Corner.” Little Slam, for the sum of two guineas, payable in advance, engaged to make first-class players of anyone with normal intelligence. Diva’s mind flew off to the subject of dress, and the thought of the awful tragedy concerning the tea-gown of kingfisher-blue, combined with the endive salad, gave a wry twist to her mouth for a moment.

“I, as you know,” continued Mr. Wyse, “am no hand at bridge.”

“Oh, Mr. Wyse, you play beautifully,” interpolated Elizabeth.

“Too flattering of you, Miss Mapp. But Amelia and Cecco do not agree with you. I am never allowed to play when I am at the Villa Faraglione, unless a table cannot be made up without me. But I shall look forward to seeing many well-contested games.”

The quails and the figs had come from Capri, and Miss Mapp, greedily devouring each in turn, was so much incensed by the information that she had elicited about them, that, though she joined in the general Lobgesang, she was tempted to inquire whether the ice had not been brought from the South Pole by some Antarctic expedition. Her mind was not, like poor Diva’s, taken up with[183] obstinate questionings about the kingfisher-blue tea-gown, for she had already determined what she was going to do about it. Naturally it was impossible to contemplate fresh encounters like that of last night, but another gown, crimson-lake, the colour of Mrs. Trout’s toilet for the second evening of the Duke of Hampshire’s visit, as Vogue informed her, had completely annihilated Newport with its splendour. She had already consulted Miss Greele about it, who said that if the kingfisher-blue was bleached first the dye of crimson-lake would be brilliant and pure… The thought of that, and the fact that Miss Greele’s lips were professionally sealed, made her able to take Diva’s arm as they strolled about the garden afterwards. The way in which both Diva and Susan had made up to Mr. Wyse during lunch was really very shocking, though it did not surprise Miss Mapp, but she supposed their heads had been turned by the prospect of playing bridge with a countess. Luckily she expected nothing better of either of them, so their conduct was in no way a blow or a disappointment to her.

This companionship with Diva was rather prolonged, for the adhesive Susan, staggering about in her sables, clung close to their host and simulated a clumsy interest in chrysanthemums; and whatever the other two did, manœuvred herself into a strong position between them and Mr. Wyse, from which, operating on interior lines, she could cut off either assailant. More depressing yet (and throwing a sad new light on his character), Mr. Wyse seemed to appreciate rather than resent the appropriation of himself, and instead of making a sortie through the beleaguering sables, would beg Diva and Elizabeth, who were so fond of fuchsias and knew about them so well, to put their heads together over an afflicted bed of these[184] flowers in quite another part of the garden, and tell him what was the best treatment for their anæmic condition. Pleasant and proper though it was to each of them that Mr. Wyse should pay so little attention to the other, it was bitter as the endive salad to both that he should tolerate, if not enjoy, the companionship which the forwardness of Susan forced on him, and while they absently stared at the fuchsias, the fire kindled, and Elizabeth spake with her tongue.

“How very plain poor Susan looks to-day,” she said. “Such a colour, though to be sure I attribute that more to what she ate and drank than to anything else. Crimson. Oh, those poor fuchsias! I think I should throw them away.”

The common antagonism, Diva felt, had drawn her and Elizabeth into the most cordial of understandings. For the moment she felt nothing but enthusiastic sympathy with Elizabeth, in spite of her kingfisher-blue gown… What on earth, in parenthesis, was she to do with hers? She could not give it to Janet: it was impossible to contemplate the idea of Janet walking about the High Street in a tea-gown of kingfisher-blue just in order to thwart Elizabeth…

“Mr. Wyse seems taken with her,” said Diva. “How he can! Rather a snob. M.B.E. She’s always popping in here. Saw her yesterday going round the corner of the street.”

“What time, dear?” asked Elizabeth, nosing the scent.

“Middle of the morning.”

“And I saw her in the afternoon,” said Elizabeth. “That great lumbering Rolls-Royce went tacking and skidding round the corner below my garden-room.”

[185] “Was she in it?” asked Diva.

This appeared rather a slur on Elizabeth’s reliability in observation.

“No, darling, she was sitting on the top,” she said, taking the edge off the sarcasm, in case Diva had not intended to be critical, by a little laugh. Diva drew the conclusion that Elizabeth had actually seen her inside.

“Think it’s serious?” she said. “Think he’ll marry her?”

The idea of course, repellent and odious as it was, had occurred to Elizabeth, so she instantly denied it.

“Oh, you busy little match-maker,” she said brightly. “Such an idea never entered my head. You shouldn’t make such fun of dear Susan. Come, dear, I can’t look at fuchsias any more. I must be getting home and must say good-bye—au reservoir, rather—to Mr. Wyse, if Susan will allow me to get a word in edgeways.”

Susan seemed delighted to let Miss Mapp get this particular word in edgewise, and after a little speech from Mr. Wyse, in which he said that he would not dream of allowing them to go yet, and immediately afterwards shook hands warmly with them both, hoping that the reservoir would be a very small one, the two were forced to leave the artful Susan in possession of the field…

It all looked rather black. Miss Mapp’s vivid imagination altogether failed to