Four more eyes were riveted on it.
‘Enticed you out just once, Padre,’ went on Miss Mapp. ‘So sweet of you to spare an evening. And here's Major Benjy and Captain Puffin. Well, that is nice!’
This was really tremendous of Miss Mapp. Here was she meeting without embarrassment or awkwardness the two who, if the duel had not been averted, would have risked their very lives over some dispute concerning her. Everybody else, naturally, was rather taken aback for the moment at this situation, so deeply dyed in the dramatic. Should either of the gladiators have heard that it was the Padre who undoubtedly had spread the rumour concerning their hostess, Mrs Poppit was afraid that even his cloth might not protect him. But no such deplorable calamity occurred, and only four more eyes were riveted to the kingfisher-blue.
‘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.’
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, here 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 quarrelling 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 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 bedtime 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 that 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. 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.
‘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 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, manoeuvred 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 flowers in quite another part of the garden, and tell him what was the best treatment for their anaemic 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. MBE. 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.’
‘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 goodbye – 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 picture what Tilling would be like if Susan succeeded in becoming Mrs Wyse and the sister-in-law of a countess, and she sat down in her garden-room and closed her eyes for a moment, in order to concentrate her power of figuring the situation. What dreadful people these climbers were! How swiftly they swarmed up the social ladder with their Rolls-Royces and their red-currant fool, and their sables! A few weeks ago she herself had never asked Susan into her house, while the very first time she came she unloosed the sluices of the store cupboard, and now, owing to the necessity of getting her aid in stopping that mischievous rumour, which she herself had been so careful to set on foot, regarding the cause of the duel, Miss Mapp had been positively obliged to flatter and to ‘Susan’ her. And if Diva's awful surmise proved to be well-founded, Susan would be in a position to patronize them all, and talk about counts and countesses with the same air of unconcern as Mr Wyse. She would be bidden to the Villa Faraglione, she would play bridge with Cecco and Amelia, she would visit the Wyses of Whitchurch…
What was to be done? She might head another movement to put Mr Wyse in his proper place; this, if successful, would have the agreeable result of pulling down Susan a rung or two should she carry out her design. But the failure of the last attempt and Mr Wyse's eminence did not argue well for any further manoeuvre of the kind. Or should she poison Mr Wyse's mind with regard to Susan?… Or was she herself causelessly agitated?
Or –
Curiosity rushed like a devastating tornado across Miss Mapp's mind, rooting up all other growths, buffeting her with the necessity of knowing what the two whom she had been forced to leave in the garden were doing now, and snatching up her opera-glasses she glided upstairs, and let herself out through the trap-door on to the roof. She did not remember if it was possible to see Mr Wyse's garden or any part of it from that watch-tower, but there was a chance…
Not a glimpse of it was visible. It lay quite hidden behind the red-brick wall which bounded it, and not a chrysanthemum or a fuchsia could she see. But her blood froze as, without putting the glasses down, she ran her eye over such part of the house-wall as rose above the obstruction. In his drawing-room window on the first floor were seated two figures. Susan had taken her sables off: it was as if she intended remaining there for ever, or at least for tea…
8
The hippopotamus quarrel over their whisky between Major Flint and Captain Puffin, which culminated in the challenge and all the shining sequel, had had the excellent effect of making the United Services more united than ever. They both knew that, had they not severally run away from the encounter, and, so providentially, met at the station, very serious consequences might have ensued. Had not both but only one of them been averse from taking or risking life, the other would surely have remained in Tilling, and spread disastrous reports about the bravery of the refugee; while if neither of them had had scruples on the sacredness of human existence there might have been one if not two corpses lying on the shining sands. Naturally the fact that they both had taken the very earliest opportunity of averting an encounter by flight, made it improbable that any future quarrel would be proceeded with to violent extremes, but it was much safer to run no risks, and not let verbal disagreements
rise to hippopotamus-pitch again. Consequently when there was any real danger of such savagery as was implied in sending challenges, they hastened, by mutual concessions, to climb down from these perilous places, where loss of balance might possibly occur. For which of them could be absolutely certain that next time the other of them might not be more courageous…?
They were coming up from the tram-station one November evening, both fizzing and fuming a good deal, and the Major was extremely lame, lamer than Puffin.
The rattle of the tram had made argument impossible during the transit from the links, but they had both in this enforced silence thought of several smart repartees, supposing that the other made the requisite remarks to call them out, and on arrival at the Tilling station they went on at precisely the same point at which they had broken 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 he would say just that, and had got a stinger for him.
‘And it worries you to find that your hopes are doomed to disappointment,’ he swiftly said.
Major Flint stepped in a puddle which cooled his foot but not his temper.
‘Most offensive remark,’ he said. ‘I wasn't called Sporting Benjy in the regiment 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 would reiterate that utterly untrue contention.
‘I can't pretend to be such a specialist as you in those matters,’ he said, ‘but you must allow me sufficient power of observation to know a worm-cast when I see it. It was a worm-cast, sir, a cast of a worm, and you had no right to remove it. If you will do me the favour to consult the rules of golf –?’