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

eye on the houses of Captain Puffin and Major Benjy. The Royce had already lumbered by her door since lunch-time, but so dark was it that, peer as she might, it was lost in the gloom before it came to the dentist’s corner, and Miss Mapp had to face the fact that she really did not know whether it had turned into the street where Susan’s lover lived or had gone straight on. It was easier to imagine the worst, and she had already pictured to herself a clandestine meeting between those passionate ones, who under cover of this darkness were imperviously concealed from any observation (beneath an umbrella) from her house-roof. Nothing but a powerful searchlight could reveal what was going on in the drawing-room window of Mr. Wyse’s house, and apart from the fact that she had not got a powerful[245] searchlight, it was strongly improbable that anything of a very intimate nature was going on there … it was not likely that they would choose the drawing-room window. She thought of calling on Mr. Wyse and asking for the loan of a book, so that she would see whether the sables were in the hall, but even then she would not really be much further on. Even as she considered this a sea-mist began to creep through the street outside, and in a few minutes it was blotted from view. Nothing was visible, and nothing audible but the hissing of the shrouded rain.

Suddenly from close outside came the sound of a door-knocker imperiously plied, which could be no other than her own. Only a telegram or some urgent errand could bring anyone out on such a day, and unable to bear the suspense of waiting till Withers had answered it, she hurried into the house to open the door herself. Was the news of the engagement coming to her at last? Late though it was, she would welcome it even now, for it would atone, in part at any rate… It was Diva.

“Diva dear!” said Miss Mapp enthusiastically, for Withers was already in the hall. “How sweet of you to come round. Anything special?”

“Yes,” said Diva, opening her eyes very wide, and spreading a shower of moisture as she whisked off her mackintosh. “She’s come.”

This could not refer to Susan…

“Who?” asked Miss Mapp.

“Faradiddleony,” said Diva.

“No!” said Miss Mapp very loud, so much interested that she quite forgot to resent Diva’s being the first to have the news. “Let’s have a comfortable cup of tea in the garden-room. Tea, Withers.”

[246] Miss Mapp lit the candles there, for, lost in meditation, she had been sitting in the dark, and with reckless hospitality poked the fire to make it blaze.

“Tell me all about it,” she said. That would be a treat for Diva, who was such a gossip.

“Went to the station just now,” said Diva. “Wanted a new time-table. Besides the Royce had just gone down. Mr. Wyse and Susan on the platform.”

“Sables?” asked Miss Mapp parenthetically, to complete the picture.

“Swaddled. Talked to them. Train came in. Woman got out. Kissed Mr. Wyse. Shook hands with Susan. Both hands. While luggage was got out.”

“Much?” asked Miss Mapp quickly.

“Hundreds. Covered with coronets and Fs. Two cabs.”

Miss Mapp’s mind, on a hot scent, went back to the previous telegraphic utterance.

“Both hands did you say, dear?” she asked. “Perhaps that’s the Italian fashion.”

“Maybe. Then what else do you think? Faradiddleony kissed Susan! Mr. Wyse and she must be engaged. I can’t account for it any other way. He must have written to tell his sister. Couldn’t have told her then at the station. Must have been engaged some days and we never knew. They went to look at the orchid. Remember? That was when.”

It was bitter, no doubt, but the bitterness could be transmuted into an amazing sweetness.

“Then now I can speak,” said Miss Mapp with a sigh of great relief. “Oh, it has been so hard keeping silence, but I felt I ought to. I knew all along, Diva dear, all, all along.”

[247] “How?” asked Diva with a fallen crest.

Miss Mapp laughed merrily.

“I looked out of the window, dear, while you went for your hanky and peeped into dining-room and boudoir, didn’t you? There they were on the lawn, and they kissed each other. So I said to myself: ‘Dear Susan has got him! Perseverance rewarded!’”

“H’m. Only a guess of yours. Or did Susan tell you?”

“No, dear, she said nothing. But Susan was always secretive.”

“But they might not have been engaged at all,” said Diva with a brightened eye. “Man doesn’t always marry a woman he kisses!”

Diva had betrayed the lowness of her mind now by hazarding that which had for days dwelt in Miss Mapp’s mind as almost certain. She drew in her breath with a hissing noise as if in pain.

“Darling, what a dreadful suggestion,” she said. “No such idea ever occurred to me. Secretive I thought Susan might be, but immoral, never. I must forget you ever thought that. Let’s talk about something less painful. Perhaps you would like to tell me more about the Contessa.”

Diva had the grace to look ashamed of herself, and to take refuge in the new topic so thoughtfully suggested.

“Couldn’t see clearly,” she said. “So dark. But tall and lean. Sneezed.”

“That might happen to anybody, dear,” said Miss Mapp, "whether tall or short. Nothing more?”

“An eyeglass,” said Diva after thought.

“A single one?” asked Miss Mapp. “On a string? How strange for a woman.”

[248] That seemed positively the last atom of Diva’s knowledge, and though Miss Mapp tried on the principles of psycho-analysis to disinter something she had forgotten, the catechism led to no results whatever. But Diva had evidently something else to say, for after finishing her tea she whizzed backwards and forwards from window to fireplace with little grunts and whistles, as was her habit when she was struggling with utterance. Long before it came out, Miss Mapp had, of course, guessed what it was. No wonder Diva found difficulty in speaking of a matter in which she had behaved so deplorably…

“About that wretched dress,” she said at length. “Got it stained with chocolate first time I wore it, and neither I nor Janet can get it out.”

(“Hurrah,” thought Miss Mapp.)

“Must have it dyed again,” continued Diva. “Thought I’d better tell you. Else you might have yours dyed the same colour as mine again. Kingfisher-blue to crimson-lake. All came out of Vogue and Mrs. Trout. Rather funny, you know, but expensive. You should have seen your face, Elizabeth, when you came in to Susan’s the other night.”

“Should I, dearest?” said Miss Mapp, trembling violently.

“Yes. Wouldn’t have gone home with you in the dark for anything. Murder.”

“Diva dear,” said Miss Mapp anxiously, “you’ve got a mind which likes to put the worst construction on everything. If Mr. Wyse kisses his intended you think things too terrible for words; if I look surprised you think I’m full of hatred and malice. Be more generous, dear. Don’t put evil constructions on all you see.”

“Ho!” said Diva with a world of meaning.

[249] “I don’t know what you intend to convey by ho,” said Miss Mapp, “and I shan’t try to guess. But be kinder, darling, and it will make you happier. Thinketh no evil, you know! Charity!”

Diva felt that the limit of what was tolerable was reached when Elizabeth lectured her on the need of charity, and she would no doubt have explained tersely and unmistakably exactly what she meant by “Ho!” had not Withers opportunely entered to clear away tea. She brought a note with her, which Miss Mapp opened. “Encourage me to hope,” were the first words that met her eye: Mrs. Poppit had been encouraging him to hope again.

“To dine at Mr. Wyse’s to-morrow,” she said. “No doubt the announcement will be made then. He probably wrote it before he went to the station. Yes, a few friends. You going, dear?”

Diva instantly got up.

“Think I’ll run home and see,” she said. “By the by, Elizabeth, what about the—the teagown, if I go? You or I?”

“If yours is all covered with chocolate, I shouldn’t think you’d like to wear it,” said Miss Mapp.

“Could tuck it away,” said Diva, “just for once. Put flowers. Then send it to dyer’s. You won’t see it again. Not crimson-lake, I mean.”

Miss Mapp summoned the whole of her magnanimity. It had been put to a great strain already and was tired out, but it was capable of one more effort.

“Wear it then,” she said. “It’ll be a treat to you. But let me know if you’re not asked. I daresay Mr. Wyse will want to keep it very small. Good-bye, dear; I’m afraid you’ll get very wet going home.”

[250]

CHAPTER XI

The sea-mist and the rain continued without intermission next morning, but shopping with umbrellas and mackintoshes was unusually brisk, for there was naturally a universally felt desire to catch sight of a Contessa with as little delay as possible. The foggy conditions perhaps added to the excitement, for it was not possible to see more than a few yards, and thus at any moment anybody might almost run into her. Diva’s impressions, meagre though they were, had been thoroughly circulated, but the morning passed, and the ladies of Tilling went home to change their wet things and take a little ammoniated quinine as a precaution after so long and chilly an exposure, without a single one of them having caught sight of the single eyeglass. It was disappointing, but the disappointment was bearable since Mr. Wyse, so far from wanting his party to be very small, had been encouraged by Mrs. Poppit to hope that it would include all his world of Tilling with one exception. He had hopes with regard to the Major and the Captain, and the Padre and wee wifie, and Irene and Miss Mapp, and of course Isabel. But apparently he despaired of Diva.

She alone therefore was absent from this long, wet shopping, for she waited indoors, almost pen in hand, to answer in the affirmative the invitation which had at present not arrived. Owing to the thickness of the fog, her absence from the street passed unnoticed, for everybody supposed that everybody else had seen her, while she, biting her nails at home, waited and waited and waited. Then she waited. About a quarter past one she gave it[251] up, and duly telephoned, according to promise, viâ Janet and Withers, to Miss Mapp to say that Mr. Wyse had not yet hoped. It was very unpleasant to let them know, but if she had herself rung up and been answered by Elizabeth, who usually rushed to the telephone, she felt that she would sooner have choked than have delivered this message. So Janet telephoned and Withers said she would tell her mistress. And did.

Miss Mapp was steeped in pleasant conjectures. The most likely of all was that the Contessa had seen that roundabout little busybody in the station, and taken an instant dislike to her through her single eyeglass. Or she might have seen poor Diva inquisitively inspecting the luggage with the coronets and the Fs on it, and have learned with pain that this was one of the ladies of Tilling. “Algernon,” she would have said (so said Miss Mapp to herself), “who is that queer little woman? Is she going to steal some of my luggage?” And then Algernon would have told her that this was poor Diva, quite a decent sort of little body. But when it came to Algernon asking his guests for the dinner-party in honour of his betrothal and her arrival at Tilling, no doubt the Contessa would have said, “Algernon, I beg… “ Or if Diva—poor Diva—was right in her conjectures that the notes had been written before the arrival of the train, it was evident that Algernon had torn up the one addressed to Diva, when the Contessa heard whom she was to meet the next evening… Or Susan might easily have insinuated that they would have two very pleasant tables of bridge after dinner without including Diva, who was so wrong and quarrelsome over the score. Any of these explanations were quite satisfactory, and since Diva would not be present, Miss Mapp would naturally don the crimson-lake. They[252] would all see what crimson-lake looked like when it decked a suitable wearer and was not parodied on the other side of a card-table. How true, as dear Major Benjy had said, that one woman could wear what another could not… And if there was a woman who could not wear crimson-lake it was Diva… Or was Mr. Wyse really ashamed to let his sister see Diva in the crimson-lake? It would be just like him to be considerate of Diva, and not permit her to make a guy of herself before the Italian aristocracy. No doubt he would ask her