CHAPTER VIII
The hippopotamus quarrel over their whisky between Major Flint andCaptain Puffin, which culminated in the challenge and all the shiningsequel, had had the excellent effect of making the united services moreunited than ever. They both knew that, had they not severally run awayfrom the encounter, and, so providentially, met at the station, veryserious consequences might have ensued. Had not both but only one ofthem been averse from taking or risking life, the other would surelyhave remained in Tilling, and spread disastrous reports about thebravery of the refugee; while if neither of them had had scruples on thesacredness of human existence there might have been one if not twocorpses lying on the shining sands. Naturally the fact that they bothhad taken the very earliest opportunity of averting an encounter byflight, made it improbable that any future quarrel would be proceededwith to violent extremes, but it was much safer to run no risks, and notlet verbal disagreements rise to hippopotamus-pitch again. Consequentlywhen there was any real danger of such savagery as was implied insending challenges, they hastened, by mutual concessions, to climb downfrom these perilous places, where loss of balance might possibly occur.For which of them could be absolutely certain that next time the otherof them might not be more courageous?...
They were coming up from the tram-station one November evening, bothfizzing and fuming a good deal, and the Major was extremely lame, lamerthan Puffin. The rattle of the tram had made argument impossible duringthe transit from the links, but they had both in this enforced silencethought of several smart repartees, supposing that the other made therequisite remarks to call them out, and on arrival at the Tillingstation they went on at precisely the same point at which they hadbroken off on starting from the station by the links.
"Well, I hope I can take a beating in as English a spirit as anybody,"said the Major.
This was lucky for Captain Puffin: he had thought it likely that hewould say just that, and had got a stinger for him.
"And it worries you to find that your hopes are doomed todisappointment," he swiftly said.
Major Flint stepped in a puddle which cooled his foot but not histemper.
"Most offensive remark," he said. "I wasn't called Sporting Benjy in theregiment for nothing. But never mind that. A worm-cast----"
"It wasn't a worm-cast," said Puffin. "It was sheep's dung!"
Luck had veered here: the Major had felt sure that Puffin wouldreiterate that utterly untrue contention.
"I can't pretend to be such a specialist as you in those matters," hesaid, "but you must allow me sufficient power of observation to know aworm-cast when I see it. It was a worm-cast, sir, a cast of a worm, andyou had no right to remove it. If you will do me the favour to consultthe rules of golf----?"
"Oh, I grant you that you are more a specialist in the rules of golf,Major, than in the practice of it," said Puffin brightly.
Suddenly it struck Sporting Benjy that the red signals of danger dancedbefore his eyes, and though the odious Puffin had scored twice to hisonce, he called up all his powers of self-control, for if his friend wasanything like as exasperated as himself, the breeze of disagreementmight develop into a hurricane. At the moment he was passing through aswing-gate which led to a short cut back to the town, but before hecould take hold of himself he had slammed it back in his fury, hittingPuffin, who was following him, on the knee. Then he remembered he was asporting Christian gentleman, and no duellist.
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, my dear fellow," he said, with the utmostsolicitude. "Uncommonly stupid of me. The gate flew out of my hand. Ihope I didn't hurt you."
Puffin had just come to the same conclusion as Major Flint: magnanimitywas better than early trains, and ever so much better than bullets.Indeed there was no comparison....
"Not hurt a bit, thank you, Major," he said, wincing with the shrewdnessof the blow, silently cursing his friend for what he felt sure was noaccident, and limping with both legs. "It didn't touch me. Ha! What abrilliant sunset. The town looks amazingly picturesque."
"It does indeed," said the Major. "Fine subject for Miss Mapp."
Puffin shuffled alongside.
"There's still a lot of talk going on in the town," he said, "about thatduel of ours. Those fairies of yours are all agog to know what it wasabout. I am sure they all think that there was a lady in the case. Justlike the vanity of the sex. If two men have a quarrel, they think itmust be because of their silly faces."
Ordinarily the Major's gallantry would have resented this view, but thereconciliation with Puffin was too recent to risk just at present.
"Poor little devils," he said. "It makes an excitement for them. Iwonder who they think it is. It would puzzle me to name a woman inTilling worth catching an early train for."
"There are several who'd be surprised to hear you say that, Major," saidPuffin archly.
"Well, well," said the other, strutting and swelling, and walkingwithout a sign of lameness....
They had come to where their houses stood opposite each other on thesteep cobbled street, fronted at its top end by Miss Mapp's garden-room.She happened to be standing in the window, and the Major made a greatflourish of his cap, and laid his hand on his heart.
"And there's one of them," said Puffin, as Miss Mapp acknowledged theseflorid salutations with a wave of her hand, and tripped away from thewindow.
"Poking your fun at me," said the Major. "Perhaps she was the cause ofour quarrel, hey? Well, I'll step across, shall I, about half-past nine,and bring my diaries with me?"
"I'll expect you. You'll find me at my Roman roads."
The humour of this joke never staled, and they parted with hoots andguffaws of laughter.
It must not be supposed that duelling, puzzles over the portmanteau, orthe machinations of Susan had put out of Miss Mapp's head her amiableinterest in the hour at which Major Benjy went to bed. For some time shehad been content to believe, on direct information from him, that hewent to bed early and worked at his diaries on alternate evenings, butmaturer consideration had led her to wonder whether he was being quiteas truthful as a gallant soldier should be. For though (on alternateevenings) his house would be quite dark by half-past nine, it was notfor twelve hours or more afterwards that he could be heard qui-hi-ingfor his breakfast, and unless he was in some incipient stage ofsleeping-sickness, such hours provided more than ample slumber for agrowing child, and might be considered excessive for a middle-aged man.She had a mass of evidence to show that on the other set of alternatenights his diaries (which must, in parenthesis, be of extraordinaryfullness) occupied him into the small hours, and to go to bed athalf-past nine on one night and after one o'clock on the next implied acomplicated kind of regularity which cried aloud for elucidation. If hehad only breakfasted early on the mornings after he had gone to bedearly, she might have allowed herself to be weakly credulous, but henever qui-hied earlier than half-past nine, and she could not but thinkthat to believe blindly in such habits would be a triumph not for faithbut for foolishness. "People," said Miss Mapp to herself, as herattention refused to concentrate on the evening paper, "don't do it. Inever heard of a similar case."
She had been spending the evening alone, and even the conviction thather cold apple tart had suffered diminution by at least a slice, sinceshe had so much enjoyed it hot at lunch, failed to occupy her mind forlong, for this matter had presented itself with a clamouring insistencethat drowned all other voices. She had tried, when, at the conclusion ofher supper, she had gone back to the garden-room, to immerse herself ina book, in an evening paper, in the portmanteau problem, in a jig-sawpuzzle, and in Patience, but none of these supplied the stimulus to leadher mind away from Major Benjy's evenings, or the narcotic to dull herunslumbering desire to solve a problem that was rapidly becoming one ofthe greater mysteries.
Her radiator made a seat in the window agreeably warm, and a chink inthe curtains gave her a view of the Major's lighted window. Even as shelooked, the illumination was extinguished. She had expected this, as hehad been at his diaries
late--quite naughtily late--the evening before,so this would be a night of infant slumber for twelve hours or so.
Even as she looked, a chink of light came from his front door, whichimmediately enlarged itself into a full oblong. Then it went completelyout. "He has opened the door, and has put out the hall-light," whisperedMiss Mapp to herself.... "He has gone out and shut the door.... (Perhapshe is going to post a letter.) ... He has gone into Captain Puffin'shouse without knocking. So he is expected."
Miss Mapp did not at once guess that she held in her hand the key to themystery. It was certainly Major Benjy's night for going to bed early....Then a fierce illumination beat on her brain. Had she not, soprovidentially, actually observed the Major cross the road,unmistakable in the lamplight, and had she only looked out of her windowafter the light in his was quenched, she would surely have told herselfthat good Major Benjy had gone to bed. But good Major Benjy, on ocularevidence, she now knew to have done nothing of the kind: he had goneacross to see Captain Puffin.... He was not good.
She grasped the situation in its hideous entirety. She had been deceivedand hoodwinked. Major Benjy never went to bed early at all: on alternatenights he went and sat with Captain Puffin. And Captain Puffin, shecould not but tell herself, sat up on the other set of alternate nightswith the Major, for it had not escaped her observation that when theMajor seemed to be sitting up, the Captain seemed to have gone to bed.Instantly, with strong conviction, she suspected orgies. It remained tobe seen (and she would remain to see it) to what hour these orgies werekept up.
About eleven o'clock a little mist had begun to form in the street,obscuring the complete clarity of her view, but through it there stillshone the light from behind Captain Puffin's red blind, and the mist wasnot so thick as to be able wholly to obscure the figure of Major Flintwhen he should pass below the gas lamp again into his house. But no suchfigure passed. Did he then work at his diaries every evening? And whatprice, to put it vulgarly, Roman roads?
Every moment her sense of being deceived grew blacker, and every momenther curiosity as to what they were doing became more unbearable. After aspasm of tactical thought she glided back into her house from thegarden-room, and, taking an envelope in her hand, so that she might, ifdetected, say that she was going down to the letter-box at the corner tocatch the early post, she unbolted her door and let herself out. Shecrossed the street and tip-toed along the pavement to where the redlight from Captain Puffin's window shone like a blurred danger-signalthrough the mist.
From inside came a loud duet of familiar voices: sometimes they spokesingly, sometimes together. But she could not catch the words: theysounded blurred and indistinct, and she told herself that she was veryglad that she could not hear what they said, for that would have seemedlike eaves-dropping. The voices sounded angry. Was there another duelpending? And what was it about this time?
Quite suddenly, from so close at hand that she positively leaped off thepavement into the middle of the road, the door was thrown open and theduet, louder than ever, streamed out into the street. Major Benjybounced out on to the threshold, and stumbled down the two steps thatled from the door.
"Tell you it was a worm-cast," he bellowed. "Think I don't know aworm-cast when I see a worm-cast?"
Suddenly his tone changed: this was getting too near a quarrel.
"Well, good-night, old fellow," he said. "Jolly evening."
He turned and saw, veiled and indistinct in the mist, the female figurein the roadway. Undying coquetry, as Mr. Stevenson so finely remarked,awoke, for the topic preceding the worm-cast had been "the sex."
"Bless me," he crowed, "if there isn't an unprotected lady all 'lonehere in the dark, and lost in the fog. 'Llow me to 'scort you home,madam. Lemme introduce myself and friend--Major Flint, that's me, and myfriend Captain Puffin."
He put up his hand and whispered an aside to Miss Mapp: "Revolutionizedthe theory of navigation."
Major Benjy was certainly rather gay and rather indistinct, but hispolite gallantry could not fail to be attractive. It was naughty of himto have said that he went to bed early on alternate nights, butreally.... Still, it might be better to slip away unrecognized, and,thinking it would be nice to scriggle by him and disappear in the mist,she made a tactical error in her scriggling, for she scriggled full intothe light that streamed from the open door where Captain Puffin wasstanding.
He gave a shrill laugh.
"Why, it's Miss Mapp," he said in his high falsetto. "Blow me, if itisn't our mutual friend Miss Mapp. What a 'strordinary coincidence."
Miss Mapp put on her most winning smile. To be dignified and at the sametime pleasant was the proper way to deal with this situation. Gentlemenoften had a glass of grog when they thought the ladies had goneupstairs. That was how, for the moment, she summed things up.
"Good evening," she said. "I was just going down to the pillar-box topost a letter," and she exhibited her envelope. But it dropped out ofher hand, and the Major picked it up for her.
"I'll post it for you," he said very pleasantly. "Save you the trouble.Insist on it. Why, there's no stamp on it! Why, there's no address onit! I say, Puffie, here's a letter with no address on it. Forgotten theaddress, Miss Mapp? Think they'll remember it at the post office? Well,that's one of the mos' comic things I ever came across. An, an anonymousletter, eh?"
The night air began to have a most unfortunate effect on Puffin. Whenhe came out it would have been quite unfair to have described him asdrunk. He was no more than gay and ready to go to bed. Now he becameportentously solemn, as the cold mist began to do its deadly work.
"A letter," he said impressively, "without an address is an uncommonlydangerous thing. Hic! Can't tell into whose hands it may fall. I wouldsooner go 'bout with a loaded pistol than with a letter without anyaddress. Send it to the bank for safety. Send for the police. Follow myadvice and send for the p'lice. Police!"
Miss Mapp's penetrating mind instantly perceived that that dreadfulCaptain Puffin was drunk, and she promised herself that Tilling shouldring with the tale of his excesses to-morrow. But Major Benjy, whom, ifshe mistook not, Captain Puffin had been trying, with perhaps some smallsuccess, to lead astray, was a gallant gentleman still, and sheconceived the brilliant but madly mistaken idea of throwing herself onhis protection.
"Major Benjy," she said, "I will ask you to take me home. Captain Puffinhas had too much to drink----"
"Woz that?" asked Captain Puffin, with an air of great interest.
Miss Mapp abandoned dignity and pleasantness, and lost her temper.
"I said you were drunk," she said with great distinctness. "Major Benjy,will you----"
Captain Puffin came carefully down the two steps from the door on to thepavement.
"Look here," he said, "this all needs 'splanation. You say I'm drunk, doyou? Well, I say you're drunk, going out like this in mill' of the nightto post letter with no 'dress on it. Shamed of yourself, mill'aged womangoing out in the mill' of the night in the mill' of Tilling. Veryshocking thing. What do you say, Major?"
Major Benjy drew himself up to his full height, and put on his hat inorder to take it off to Miss Mapp.
"My fren' Cap'n Puffin," he said, "is a man of strictly 'stemioushabits. Boys together. Very serious thing to call a man of my fren'scharacter drunk. If you call him drunk, why shouldn't he call you drunk?Can't take away man's character like that."
"Abso----" began Captain Puffin. Then he stopped and pulled himselftogether.
"Absolooly," he said without a hitch.
"Tilling shall hear of this to-morrow," said Miss Mapp, shivering withrage and sea-mist.
Captain Puffin came a step closer.
"Now I'll tell you what it is, Miss Mapp," he said. "If you dare to saythat I was drunk, Major and I, my fren' the Major and I will say youwere drunk. Perhaps you think my fren' the Major's drunk too. But sure'sI live, I'll say we were taking lil' walk in the moonlight and found youtrying to post a letter with no 'dress on it, and couldn't find the slitto put it in. But 'slong
as you say nothing, I say nothing. Can't sayfairer than that. Liberal terms. Mutual Protection Society. Your lipssealed, our lips sealed. Strictly private. All trespassers will beprosecuted. By order. Hic!"
Miss Mapp felt that Major Benjy ought instantly to have challenged hisignoble friend to another duel for this insolent suggestion, but he didnothing of the kind, and his silence, which had some awful quality ofconsent about it, chilled her mind, even as the sea-mist, now thick andcold, made her certain that her nose was turning red. She still boiledwith rage, but her mind grew cold with odious apprehensions: she waslike an ice-pudding with scalding sauce.... There they all stood, veiledin vapours, and outlined by the red light that streamed from thestill-open door of the intoxicated Puffin, getting colder every moment.
"Yessorno," said Puffin, with chattering teeth.
Bitter as it was to accept those outrageous terms, there really seemed,without the Major's support, to be no way out of it.
"Yes," said Miss Mapp.
Puffin gave a loud crow.
"The ayes have it, Major," he said. "So we're all frens again. Goonighteverybody."
* * * * *
Miss Mapp let herself into her house in an agony of mortification. Shecould scarcely realize that her little expedition, undertaken with somuch ardent and earnest curiosity only a quarter of an hour ago, hadended in so deplorable a surfeit of sensation. She had gone out inobedience to an innocent and, indeed, laudable desire to ascertain howMajor Benjy spent those evenings on which he had deceived her intoimagining that, owing to her influence, he had gone ever so early tobed, only to find that he sat up ever so late and that she was fetteredby a promise not to breathe to a soul a single word about the depravityof Captain Puffin, on pain of being herself accused out of the mouth oftwo witnesses of being equally depraved herself. More wounding yet wasthe part played by her Major Benjy in these odious transactions, and itwas only possible to conclude that he put a higher value on hisfellowship with his degraded friend than on chivalry itself.... And whatdid his silence imply? Probably it was a defensive one; he imagined thathe, too, would be included in the stories that Miss Mapp proposed tosow broadcast upon the fruitful fields of Tilling, and, indeed, when shecalled to mind his bellowing about worm-casts, his general instabilityof speech and equilibrium, she told herself that he had ample cause forsuch a supposition. He, when his lights were out, was abetting,assisting and perhaps joining Captain Puffin. When his window was alighton alternate nights she made no doubt now that Captain Puffin wasperforming a similar role. This had been going on for weeks under hervery nose, without her having the smallest suspicion of it.
Humiliated by all that had happened, and flattened in her own estimationby the sense of her blindness, she penetrated to the kitchen and lit agas-ring to make herself some hot cocoa, which would at least comforther physical chatterings. There was a letter for Withers, slippedsideways into its envelope, on the kitchen table, and mechanically sheopened and read it by the bluish flame of the burner. She had alwayssuspected Withers of having a young man, and here was proof of it. Butthat he should be Mr. Hopkins of the fish-shop!
There is known to medical science a pleasant device known as acounter-irritant. If the patient has an aching and rheumatic joint he iscounselled to put some hot burning application on the skin, which smartsso agonizingly that the ache is quite extinguished. Metaphorically, Mr.Hopkins was thermogene to Miss Mapp's outraged and aching consciousness,and the smart occasioned by the knowledge that Withers must haveencouraged Mr. Hopkins (else he could scarcely have written a letter sofamiliar and amorous), and thus be contemplating matrimony, relieved theaching humiliation of all that had happened in the sea-mist. It shed anew and lurid light on Withers, it made her mistress feel that she hadnourished a serpent in her bosom, to think that Withers wascontemplating so odious an act of selfishness as matrimony. It would benecessary to find a new parlour-maid, and all the trouble connected withthat would not nearly be compensated for by being able to buy fish at alower rate. That was the least that Withers could do for her, to insistthat Mr. Hopkins should let her have dabs and plaice exceptionallycheap. And ought she to tell Withers that she had seen Mr. Hopkins ...no, that was impossible: she must write it, if she decided (for Withers'sake) to make this fell communication.
Miss Mapp turned and tossed on her uneasy bed, and her mind went back tothe Major and the Captain and that fiasco in the fog. Of course she wasperfectly at liberty (having made her promise under practicalcompulsion) to tell everybody in Tilling what had occurred, trusting tothe chivalry of the men not to carry out their counter threat, butlooking at the matter quite dispassionately, she did not think it wouldbe wise to trust too much to chivalry. Still, even if they did carry outtheir unmanly menace, nobody would seriously believe that she had beendrunk. But they might make a very disagreeable joke of pretending to doso, and, in a word, the prospect frightened her. Whatever Tilling did ordid not believe, a residuum of ridicule would assuredly cling to her,and her reputation of having perhaps been the cause of the quarrelwhich, so happily did not end in a duel, would be lost for ever. Eviewould squeak, quaint Irene would certainly burst into hoarse laughterwhen she heard the story. It was very inconvenient that honesty shouldbe the best policy.
Her brain still violently active switched off for a moment on to theeternal problem of the portmanteau. Why, so she asked herself for thehundredth time, if the portmanteau contained the fatal apparatus ofduelling, did not the combatants accompany it? And if (the only otheralternative) it did not----?
An idea so luminous flashed across her brain that she almost thought theroom had leaped into light. The challenge distinctly said that MajorBenjy's seconds would wait upon Captain Puffin in the course of themorning. With what object then could the former have gone down to thestation to catch the early train? There could be but one object, namelyto get away as quickly as possible from the dangerous vicinity of thechallenged Captain. And why did Captain Puffin leave that note on histable to say that he was suddenly called away, except in order to escapefrom the ferocious neighbourhood of his challenger?
"The cowards!" ejaculated Miss Mapp. "They both ran away from eachother! How blind I've been!"
The veil was rent. She perceived how, carried away with the notion thata duel was to be fought among the sand-dunes, Tilling had quiteoverlooked the significance of the early train. She felt sure that shehad solved everything now, and gave herself up to a rapturousconsideration of what use she would make of the precious solution. Allregrets for the impossibility of ruining the character of Captain Puffinwith regard to intoxicants were gone, for she had an even deadlierblacking to hand. No faintest hesitation at ruining the reputation ofMajor Benjy as well crossed her mind; she gloried in it, for he had notonly caused her to deceive herself about the early hours on alternatenights, but by his infamous willingness to back up Captain Puffin'sbargain, he had shown himself imperviously waterproof to all chivalrousimpulses. For weeks now the sorry pair of them had enjoyed the spurioussplendours of being men of blood and valour, when all the time they hadput themselves to all sorts of inconvenience in catching early trainsand packing bags by candle-light in order to escape the hot impulses ofquarrel that, as she saw now, were probably derived from drainedwhisky-bottles. That mysterious holloaing about worm-casts was just suchanother disagreement. And, crowning rapture of all, her own position ascause of the projected duel was quite unassailed. Owing to her silenceabout drink, no one would suspect a mere drunken brawl: she would stillfigure as heroine, though the heroes were terribly dismantled. To besure, it would have been better if their ardour about her had been suchthat one of them, at the least, had been prepared to face the ordeal,that they had not both preferred flight, but even without that she hadmuch to be thankful for. "It will serve them both," said Miss Mapp(interrupted by a sneeze, for she had been sitting up in bed for quite aconsiderable time), "right."
To one of Miss Mapp's experience, the first step of her new anddelightful strategic campai
gn was obvious, and she spent hardly any timeat all in the window of her garden-room after breakfast next morning,but set out with her shopping-basket at an unusually early hour. Sheshuddered as she passed between the front doors of her miscreantneighbours, for the chill of last night's mist and its dreadful memoriesstill lingered there, but her present errand warmed her soul even as thetepid November day comforted her body. No sign of life was at presentevident in those bibulous abodes, no qui-his had indicated breakfast,and she put her utmost irony into the reflection that the UnitedServices slept late after their protracted industry last night overdiaries and Roman roads. By a natural revulsion, violent in proportionto the depth of her previous regard for Major Benjy, she hugged herselfmore closely on the prospect of exposing him than on that of exposingthe other. She had had daydreams about Major Benjy and the conversion ofthese into nightmares annealed her softness into the semblance of somered-hot stone, giving vengeance a concentrated sweetness as ofsaccharine contrasted with ordinary lump sugar. This sweetness was of sopowerful a quality that she momentarily forgot all about the contents ofWithers's letter on the kitchen table, and tripped across to Mr.Hopkins's with an oblivious smile for him.
"Good morning, Mr. Hopkins," she said. "I wonder if you've got a nicelittle dab for my dinner to-day? Yes? Will you send it up then, please?What a mild morning, like May!"
The opening move, of course, was to tell Diva about the revelation thathad burst on her the night before. Diva was incomparably the bestdisseminator of news: she walked so fast, and her telegraphic style wasso brisk and lucid. Her terse tongue, her revolving feet! Such a gossip!
"Diva darling, I had to look in a moment," said Elizabeth, pecking heraffectionately on both cheeks. "Such a bit of news!"
"Oh, Contessa di Faradidleony," said Diva sarcastically. "I heardyesterday. Journey put off."
Miss Mapp just managed to stifle the excitement which would havebetrayed that this was news to her.
"No, dear, not that," she said. "I didn't suspect you of not knowingthat. Unfortunate though, isn't it, just when we were all beginning tobelieve that there was a Contessa di Faradidleony! What a sweet name!For my part I shall believe in her when I see her. Poor Mr. Wyse!"
"What's the news then?" asked Diva.
"My dear, it all came upon me in a flash," said Elizabeth. "It explainsthe portmanteau and the early train and the duel."
Diva looked disappointed. She thought this was to be some solid piece ofnews, not one of Elizabeth's ideas only.
"Drive ahead," she said.
"They ran away from each other," said Elizabeth, mouthing her words asif speaking to a totally deaf person who understood lip-reading. "Nevermind the cause of the duel: that's another affair. But whatever thecause," here she dropped her eyes, "the Major having sent the challengepacked his portmanteau. He ran away, dear Diva, and met Captain Puffinat the station running away too."
"But did----" began Diva.
"Yes, dear, the note on Captain Puffin's table to his housekeeper saidhe was called away suddenly. What called him away? Cowardice, dear! Howignoble it all is. And we've all been thinking how brave and wonderfulthey were. They fled from each other, and came back together and playedgolf. I never thought it was a game for men. The sand-dunes where theywere supposed to be fighting! They might lose a ball there, but thatwould be the utmost. Not a life. Poor Padre! Going out there to stop aduel, and only finding a game of golf. But I understand the nature ofmen better now. What an eye-opener!"
Diva by this time was trundling away round the room, and longing to beoff in order to tell everybody. She could find no hole in Elizabeth'sarguments; it was founded as solidly as a Euclidean proposition.
"Ever occurred to you that they drink?" she asked. "Believe in Romanroads and diaries? I don't."
Miss Mapp bounded from her chair. Danger flags flapped and crimsoned inher face. What if Diva went flying round Tilling, suggesting that inaddition to being cowards those two men were drunkards? They would, assoon as any hint of the further exposure reached them, conclude that shehad set the idea on foot, and then----
"No, Diva darling," she said, "don't dream of imagining such a thing. Sodangerous to hint anything of the sort. Cowards they may be, and indeedare, but never have I seen anything that leads me to suppose that theydrink. We must give them their due, and stick to what we know; we mustnot launch accusations wildly about other matters, just because we knowthey are cowards. A coward need not be a drunkard, thank God! It is allmiserable enough, as it is!"
Having averted this danger, Miss Mapp, with her radiant, excited face,seemed to be bearing all the misery very courageously, and as Diva couldno longer be restrained from starting on her morning round they plungedtogether into the maelstrom of the High Street, riding and whirling inits waters with the solution of the portmanteau and the early train forlife-buoy. Very little shopping was done that morning, for everypermutation and combination of Tilling society (with the exception, ofcourse, of the cowards) had to be formed on the pavement with a view tothe amplest possible discussion. Diva, as might have been expected, gaveproof of her accustomed perfidy before long, for she certainly gavethe Padre to understand that the chain of inductive reasoning was ofher own welding and Elizabeth had to hurry after him to correct thisgrabbing impression; but the discovery in itself was so great, thatsmall false notes like these could not spoil the glorious harmony. EvenMr. Wyse abandoned his usual neutrality with regard to social politicsand left his tall malacca cane in the chemist's, so keen was his gusto,on seeing Miss Mapp on the pavement outside, to glean any fresh detailof evidence.
By eleven o'clock that morning, the two duellists were universally knownas "the cowards," the Padre alone demurring, and being swampinglyoutvoted. He held (sticking up for his sex) that the Major had beenbrave enough to send a challenge (on whatever subject) to his friend,and had, though he subsequently failed to maintain that high level,shown courage of a high order, since, for all he knew, Captain Puffinmight have accepted it. Miss Mapp was spokesman for the mind of Tillingon this too indulgent judgment.
"Dear Padre," she said, "you are too generous altogether. They both ranaway: you can't get over that. Besides you must remember that, when theMajor sent the challenge, he knew Captain Puffin, oh so well, and quiteexpected he would run away----"
"Then why did he run away himself?" asked the Padre.
This was rather puzzling for a moment, but Miss Mapp soon thought of theexplanation.
"Oh, just to make sure," she said, and Tilling applauded her readyirony.
And then came the climax of sensationalism, when at about ten minutespast eleven the two cowards emerged into the High Street on their way tocatch the 11.20 tram out to the links. The day threatened rain, andthey both carried bags which contained a change of clothes. Just roundthe corner of the High Street was the group which had applauded MissMapp's quickness, and the cowards were among the breakers. They glancedat each other, seeing that Miss Mapp was the most towering of thebreakers, but it was too late to retreat, and they made the usualsalutations.
"Good morning," said Diva, with her voice trembling. "Off to catch theearly train together--I mean the tram."
"Good morning, Captain Puffin," said Miss Mapp with extreme sweetness."What a nice little travelling bag! Oh, and the Major's got one too!H'm!"
A certain dismay looked from Major Flint's eyes, Captain Puffin's mouthfell open, and he forgot to shut it.
"Yes; change of clothes," said the Major. "It looks a threateningmorning."
"Very threatening," said Miss Mapp. "I hope you will do nothing rash ordangerous."
There was a moment's silence, and the two looked from one face toanother of this fell group. They all wore fixed, inexplicable smiles.
"It will be pleasant among the sand-dunes," said the Padre, and his wifegave a loud squeak.
"Well, we shall be missing our tram," said the Major. "Au--au reservoir,ladies."
Nobody responded at all, and they hurried off down the street, theirbags bumpi
ng together very inconveniently.
"Something's up, Major," said Puffin, with true Tilling perspicacity, assoon as they had got out of hearing....
* * * * *
Precisely at the same moment Miss Mapp gave a little cooing laugh.
"Now I must run and do my bittie shopping, Padre," she said, and kissedher hand all round.... The curtain had to come down for a little whileon so dramatic a situation. Any discussion, just then, would be ananti-climax.