‘And is your ladyship making a long stay in Tilling?’ asked the (real) Major, to cover the pause which had been caused by Mr Wyse saying something across the table to Isabel.
She dropped her eyeglass with quite a splash into her gravy, pulled it out again by the string as if landing a fish, and sucked it.
‘That depends on you gentlemen,’ she said with greater audacity than was usual in Tilling. ‘If you and Major Puffin and that sweet little Scotch clergyman all fall in love with me, and fight duels about me, I will stop for ever…’
The Major recovered himself before anybody else.
‘Your ladyship may take that for granted,’ he said gallantly, and a perfect hubbub of conversation rose to cover this awful topic.
She laid her hand on his arm.
‘You must not call me ladyship, Captain Flint,’ she said. ‘Only servants say that. Contessa, if you like. And you must blow away this fog for me. I have seen nothing but bales of cotton-wool out of the window. Tell me this, too: why are those ladies dressed alike? Are they sisters? Mrs Mapp, the little round one, and her sister, the big round one?’
The Major cast an apprehensive eye on Miss Mapp seated just opposite, whose acuteness of hearing was one of the terrors of Tilling… His apprehensions were perfectly well founded, and Miss Mapp hated and despised the Contessa from that hour.
‘No, not sisters,’ said he, ‘and your la– you've made a little error about the names. The one opposite is Miss Mapp, the other Mrs Plaistow.’
The Contessa moderated her voice.
‘I see; she looks vexed, your Miss Mapp. I think she must have heard, and I will be very nice to her afterwards. Why does not one of you gentlemen marry her? I see I shall have to arrange that. The sweet little Scotch clergyman now; little men like big wives. Ah! Married already is he to the mouse? Then it must be you, Captain Flint. We must have more marriages in Tilling.’
Miss Mapp could not help glancing at the Contessa, as she made this remarkable observation. It must be the cue, she thought, for the announcement of that which she had known so long… In the space of a wink the clever Contessa saw that she had her attention, and spoke rather loudly to the Major.
‘I have lost my heart to your Miss Mapp,’ she said. ‘I am jealous of you, Captain Flint. She will be my great friend in Tilling, and if you marry her, I shall hate you, for that will mean that she likes you best.’
Miss Mapp hated nobody at that moment, not even Diva, off whose face the hastily-applied powder was crumbling, leaving little red marks peeping out like the stars on a fine evening. Dinner came to an end with roasted chestnuts brought by the Contessa from Capri.
‘I always scold Amelia for the luggage she takes with her,’ said Mr Wyse to Diva. ‘Amelia, dear, you are my hostess to-night’ – everybody saw him look at Mrs Poppit – ‘you must catch somebody's eye.’
‘I will catch Miss Mapp's,’ said Amelia, and all the ladies rose as if connected with some hidden mechanism which moved them simultaneously… There was a great deal of pretty diffidence at the door, but the Contessa put an end to that.
‘Eldest first,’ she said, and marched out, making Miss Mapp, Diva and the mouse feel remarkably young. She might drop her eyeglass and talk with her mouth full, but really such tact… They all determined to adopt this pleasing device in the future. The disappointment about the announcement of the engagement was sensibly assuaged, and Miss Mapp and Susan, in their eagerness to be younger than the Contessa, and yet take precedence of all the rest, almost stuck in the doorway. They rebounded from each other, and Diva whizzed out between them. Quaint Irene went in her right place – last. However quaint Irene was, there was no use in pretending that she was not the youngest.
However hopelessly Amelia had lost her heart to Miss Mapp, she did not devote her undivided attention to her in the drawing-room, but swiftly established herself at the card-table, where she proceeded, with a most complicated sort of Patience and a series of cigarettes, to while away the time till the gentlemen joined them. Though the ladies of Tilling had plenty to say to each other, it was all about her, and such comments could not conveniently be made in her presence. Unless, like her, they talked some language unknown to the subject of their conversation, they could not talk at all, and so they gathered round her table, and watched the lightning rapidity with which she piled black knaves on red queens in some packs and red knaves on black queens in others. She had taken off all her rings in order to procure a greater freedom of finger, and her eyeglass continued to crash on to a glittering mass of magnificent gems. The rapidity of her motions was only equalled by the swift and surprising monologue that poured from her mouth.
‘There, that odious king gets in my way,’ she said. ‘So like a man to poke himself in where he isn't wanted. Bacco! No, not that: I have a cigarette. I hear all you ladies are terrific bridge-players: we will have a game presently, and I shall sink into the earth with terror at your Camorra! Dio! there's another king, and that's his own queen whom he doesn't want at all. He is amoroso for that black queen, who is quite covered up, and he would liked to be covered up with her. Susan, my dear’ (that was interesting, but they all knew it already), ‘kindly ring the bell for coffee. I expire if I do not get my coffee at once, and a toothpick. Tell me all the scandal of Tilling, Miss Mapp, while I play – all the dreadful histories of that Major and that Captain. Such a grand air has the Captain – no, it is the Major, the one who does not limp. Which of all you ladies do they love most? It is Miss Mapp, I believe: that is why she does not answer me. Ah! here is the coffee, and the other king: three lumps of sugar, dear Susan, and then stir it up well, and hold it to my mouth, so that I can drink without interruption. Ah, the ace! He is the intervener, or is it the King's Proctor? It would be nice to have a proctor who told you all the love-affairs that were going on. Susan, you must get me a proctor: you shall be my proctor. And here are the men – the wretches, they have been preferring wine to women, and we will have our bridge, and if anybody scolds me, I shall cry, Miss Mapp, and Captain Flint will hold my hand and comfort me.’
She gathered up a heap of cards and rings, dropped them on the floor, and cut with the remainder.
Miss Mapp was very lenient with the Contessa, who was her partner, and pointed out the mistakes of her and their adversaries with the most winning smile and eagerness to explain things clearly. Then she revoked heavily herself, and the Contessa, so far from being angry with her, burst into peals of unquenchable merriment. This way of taking a revoke was new to Tilling, for the right thing was for the revoker's partner to sulk and be sarcastic for at least twenty minutes after. The Contessa's laughter continued to spurt out at intervals during the rest of the rubber, and it was all very pleasant; but at the end she said she was not up to Tilling standards at all, and refused to play any more. Miss Mapp, in the highest good-humour urged her not to despair.
‘Indeed, dear Contessa,’ she said, ‘you play very well. A little overbidding of your hand, perhaps, do you think? but that is a tendency we are all subject to: I often overbid my hand myself. Not a little wee rubber more. I'm sure I should like to be your partner again. You must come and play at my house some afternoon. We will have tea early, and get a good two hours. Nothing like practice.’
The evening came to an end without the great announcement being made, but Miss Mapp, as she reviewed the events of the party, sitting next morning in her observation-window, found the whole evidence so overwhelming that it was no longer worthwhile to form conjectures, however fruitful, on the subject, and she diverted her mind to pleasing reminiscences and projects for the future. She had certainly been distinguished by the Contessa's marked regard, and her opinion of her charm and ability was of the very highest… No doubt her strange remark about duelling at dinner had been humorous in intention, but many a true word is spoken in jest, and the Contessa – perspicacious woman – had seen at once that Major Benjy and Captain Puffin were just the sort of men who might get to duelling (or, at any rate, challen
ging) about a woman. And her asking which of the ladies the men were most in love with, and her saying that she believed it was Miss Mapp! Miss Mapp had turned nearly as red as poor Diva when that came out, so lightly and yet so acutely…
Diva! It had, of course, been a horrid blow to find that Diva had been asked to Mr Wyse's party in the first instance, and an even shrewder one when Diva entered (with such unnecessary fussing and apology on the part of Mr Wyse) in the crimson-lake. Luckily, it would be seen no more, for Diva had promised – if you could trust Diva – to send it to the dyer's; but it was a great puzzle to know why Diva had it on at all, if she was preparing to spend a solitary evening at home. By eight o'clock she ought by rights to have already had her tray, dressed in some old thing; but within three minutes of her being telephoned for she had appeared in the crimson-lake, and eaten so heartily that it was impossible to imagine, greedy though she was, that she had already consumed her tray… But in spite of Diva's adventitious triumph, the main feeling in Miss Mapp's mind was pity for her. She looked so ridiculous in that dress with the powder peeling off her red face. No wonder the dear Contessa stared when she came in.
There was her bridge-party for the Contessa to consider. The Contessa would be less nervous, perhaps, if there was only one table: that would be more homey and cosy, and it would at the same time give rise to great heart-burnings and indignation in the breasts of those who were left out. Diva would certainly be one of the spurned, and the Contessa would not play with Mr Wyse… Then there was Major Benjy, he must certainly be asked, for it was evident that the Contessa delighted in him…
Suddenly Miss Mapp began to feel less sure that Major Benjy must be of the party. The Contessa, charming though she was, had said several very tropical, Italian things to him. She had told him that she would stop here for ever if the men fought duels about her. She had said ‘you dear darling’ to him at bridge when, as adversary, he failed to trump her losing card, and she had asked him to ask her to tea (‘with no one else, for I have a great deal to say to you’), when the general macédoine of sables, au reservoirs, and thanks for such a nice evening took place in the hall. Miss Mapp was not, in fact, sure when she thought it over, that the Contessa was a nice friend for Major Benjy. She did not do him the injustice of imagining that he would ask her to tea alone; the very suggestion proved that it must be a piece of the Contessa's Southern extravagance of expression. But, after all, thought Miss Mapp to herself, as she writhed at the idea, her other extravagant expressions were proved to cover a good deal of truth. In fact, the Major's chance of being asked to the select bridge-party diminished swiftly towards vanishing point.
It was time (and indeed late) to set forth on morning marketings, and Miss Mapp had already determined not to carry her capacious basket with her to-day, in case of meeting the Contessa in the High Street. It would be grander and Wysier and more magnificent to go basketless, and direct that the goods should be sent up, rather than run the risk of encountering the Contessa with a basket containing a couple of mutton cutlets, a ball of wool and some tooth-powder. So she put on her Prince of Wales's cloak, and, postponing further reflection over the bridge-party till a less busy occasion, set forth in unencumbered gentility for the morning gossip. At the corner of the High Street, she ran into Diva.
‘News,’ said Diva. ‘Met Mr Wyse just now. Engaged to Susan. All over the town by now. Everybody knows. Oh, there's the Padre for the first time.’
She shot across the street, and Miss Mapp, shaking the dust of Diva off her feet, proceeded on her chagrined way. Annoyed as she was with Diva, she was almost more annoyed with Susan. After all she had done for Susan, Susan ought to have told her long ago, pledging her to secrecy. But to be told like this by that common Diva, without any secrecy at all, was an affront that she would find it hard to forgive Susan for. She mentally reduced by a half the sum that she had determined to squander on Susan's wedding-present. It should be plated, not silver, and if Susan was not careful, it shouldn't be plated at all.
She had just come out of the chemist's, after an indignant interview about precipitated chalk. He had deposited the small packet on the counter, when she asked to have it sent up to her house. He could not undertake to deliver small packages. She left the precipitated chalk lying there. Emerging, she heard a loud, foreign sort of scream from close at hand. There was the Contessa, all by herself, carrying a marketing-basket of unusual size and newness. It contained a bloody steak and a crab.
‘But where is your basket, Miss Mapp?’ she exclaimed. ‘Algernon told me that all the great ladies of Tilling went marketing in the morning with big baskets, and that if I aspired to be du monde, I must have my basket, too. It is the greatest fun, and I have already written to Cecco to say I am just going marketing with my basket. Look, the steak is for Figgis, and the crab is for Algernon and me, if Figgis does not get it. But why are you not du monde? Are you du demimonde, Miss Mapp?’
She gave a croak of laughter and tickled the crab…
‘Will he eat the steak, do you think?’ she went on. ‘Is he not lively? I went to the shop of Mr Hopkins, who was not there, because he was engaged with Miss Coles. And was that not Miss Coles last night at my brother's? The one who spat in the fire when nobody but I was looking? You are enchanting at Tilling. What is Mr Hopkins doing with Miss Coles? Do they kiss? But your market-basket: that disappoints me, for Algernon said you had the biggest market-basket of all. I bought the biggest I could find: is it as big as yours?’
Miss Mapp's head was in a whirl. The Contessa said in the loudest possible voice all that everybody else only whispered; she displayed (in her basket) all that everybody else covered up with thick layers of paper. If Miss Mapp had only guessed that the Contessa would have a market-basket, she would have paraded the High Street with a leg of mutton protruding from one end and a pair of Wellington boots from the other… But who could have suspected that a Contessa…
Black thoughts succeeded. Was it possible that Mr Wyse had been satirical about the affairs of Tilling? If so, she wished him nothing worse than to be married to Susan. But a playful face must be put, for the moment, on the situation.
‘Too lovely of you, dear Contessa,’ she said. ‘May we go marketing together to-morrow, and we will measure the size of our baskets? Such fun I have, too, laughing at the dear people in Tilling. But what thrilling news this morning about our sweet Susan and your dear brother, though of course I knew it long ago.’
‘Indeed! how was that?’ said the Contessa quite sharply. Miss Mapp was ‘nettled’ at her tone.
‘Oh, you must allow me two eyes,’ she said, since it was merely tedious to explain how she had seen them from behind a curtain kissing in the garden. ‘Just two eyes.’
‘And a nose for scent,’ remarked the Contessa very genially.
This was certainly coarse, though probably Italian. Miss Mapp's opinion of the Contessa fluctuated violently like a barometer before a storm and indicated ‘Changeable’.
‘Dear Susan is such an intimate friend,’ she said.
The Contessa looked at her very fixedly for a moment, and then appeared to dismiss the matter.
‘My crab, my steak,' she said. ‘And where does your nice Captain, no, Major Flint live? I have a note to leave on him, for he has asked me to tea all alone, to see his tiger-skins. He is going to be my flirt while I am in Tilling, and when I go he will break his heart, but I will have told him who can mend it again.’
‘Dear Major Benjy!’ said Miss Mapp, at her wits' end to know how to deal with so feather-tongued a lady. ‘What a treat it will be to him to have you to tea. To-day, is it?’
The Contessa quite distinctly winked behind her eyeglass, which she had put up to look at Diva, who whirled by on the other side of the street.
‘And if I said “To-day”,’ she remarked, ‘you would – what is it that that one says’ – and she indicated Diva – ‘yes, you would pop in, and the good Major would pay no attention to me. So if I tell you I shall go to-day, yo
u will know that it is a lie, you clever Miss Mapp, and so you will go to tea with him to-morrow and find me there. Bene! Now where is his house?’
This was a sort of scheming that had never entered into Miss Mapp's life, and she saw with pain how shallow she had been all these years. Often and often she had, when inquisitive questions were put her, answered them without any strict subservience to truth, but never had she thought of confusing the issues like this. If she told Diva a lie, Diva probably guessed it was a lie, and acted accordingly, but she had never thought of making it practically impossible to tell whether it was a lie or not. She had no more idea when she walked back along the High Street with the Contessa swinging her basket by her side, whether that lady was going to tea with Major Benjy to-day or to-morrow or when, than she knew whether the crab was going to eat the beefsteak.