Page 50 of Lucia Rising


  ‘There's his house,’ she said, as they paused at the dentist's corner, ‘and there's mine next it, with the little bow-window of my garden-room looking out on to the street. I hope to welcome you there, dear Contessa, for a tiny game of bridge and some tea one of these days very soon. What day do you think? Tomorrow?’

  (Then she would know if the Contessa was going to tea with Major Benjy to-morrow… unfortunately the Contessa appeared to know that she would know it, too.)

  ‘My flirt!’ she said. ‘Perhaps I may be having tea with my flirt to-morrow.’

  Better anything than that.

  ‘I will ask him, too, to meet you,’ said Miss Mapp, feeling in some awful and helpless way that she was playing her adversary's game. ‘Adversary?’ did she say to herself? She did. The inscrutable Contessa was ‘up to’ that too.

  ‘I will not amalgamate my treats,’ she said. ‘So that is his house! What a charming house! How my heart flutters as I ring the bell!’

  Miss Mapp was now quite distraught. There was the possibility that the Contessa might tell Major Benjy that it was time he married, but on the other hand she was making arrangements to go to tea with him on an unknown date, and the hero of amorous adventures in India and elsewhere might lose his heart again to somebody quite different from one whom he could hope to marry. By daylight the dear Contessa was undeniably plain: that was something, but in these short days, tea would be conducted by artificial light, and by artificial light she was not so like a rabbit. What was worse was that by any light she had a liveliness which might be mistaken for wit, and a flattering manner which might be taken for sincerity. She hoped men were not so easily duped as that, and was sadly afraid that they were. Blind fools!

  The number of visits that Miss Mapp made about tea-time in this week before Christmas to the post-box at the corner of the High Street, with an envelope in her hand containing Mr Hopkins's bill for fish (and a postal order enclosed), baffles computation. Naturally, she did not intend, either by day or night, to risk being found again with a blank unstamped envelope in her hand, and the one enclosing Mr Hopkins's bill and the postal order would have passed scrutiny for correctness, anywhere. But fair and calm as was the exterior of that envelope, none could tell how agitated was the hand that carried it backwards and forwards until the edges got crumpled and the inscription clouded with much fingering. Indeed, of all the tricks that Miss Mapp had compassed for others, none was so sumptuously contrived as that in which she had now entangled herself.

  For these December days were dark, and in consequence not only would the Contessa be looking her best (such as it was) at tea-time, but from Miss Mapp's window it was impossible to tell whether she had gone to tea with him on any particular afternoon, for there had been a strike at the gas-works, and the lamp at the corner, which, in happier days, would have told all, told nothing whatever. Miss Mapp must therefore trudge to the letter-box with Mr Hopkins's bill in her hand as she went out, and (after a feint of posting it) with it in her pocket as she came back, in order to gather from the light in the windows, from the sound of conversation that would be audible as she passed close beneath them, whether the Major was having tea there or not, and with whom. Should she hear that ringing laugh which had sounded so pleasant when she revoked, but now was so sinister, she had quite determined to go in and borrow a book or a tiger-skin – anything. The Major could scarcely fail to ask her to tea, and, once there, wild horses should not drag her away until she had outstayed the other visitor. Then, as her malady of jealousy grew more feverish, she began to perceive, as by the ray of some dreadful dawn, that lights in the Major's room and sounds of elfin laughter were not completely trustworthy as proofs that the Contessa was there. It was possible, awfully possible, that the two might be sitting in the firelight, that voices might be hushed to amorous whisperings, that pregnant smiles might be taking the place of laughter. On one such afternoon, as she came back from the letter-box with patient Mr Hopkins's overdue bill in her pocket, a wild certainty seized her, when she saw how closely the curtains were drawn, and how still it seemed inside his room, that firelight dalliance was going on.

  She rang the bell, and imagined she heard whisperings inside while it was being answered. Presently the light went up in the hall, and the Major's Mrs Dominic opened the door.

  ‘The Major is in, I think, isn't he, Mrs Dominic?’ said Miss Mapp, in her most insinuating tones.

  ‘No, miss; out,’ said Dominic uncompromisingly. (Miss Mapp wondered if Dominic drank.)

  ‘Dear me! How tiresome, when he told me –’ said she, with playful annoyance. ‘Would you be very kind, Mrs Dominic, and just see for certain that he is not in his room? He may have come in.’

  ‘No, miss, he's out,’ said Dominic, with the parrot-like utterance of the determined liar. ‘Any message?’

  Miss Mapp turned away, more certain than ever that he was in and immersed in dalliance. She would have continued to be quite certain about it, had she not, glancing distractedly down the street, caught sight of him coming up with Captain Puffin.

  Meantime she had twice attempted to get up a cosy little party of four (so as not to frighten the Contessa) to play bridge from tea till dinner, and on both occasions the Faradiddleony (for so she had become) was most unfortunately engaged. But the second of these disappointing replies contained the hope that they would meet at their marketings to-morrow morning, and though poor Miss Mapp was really getting very tired with these innumerable visits to the post-box, whether wet or fine, she set forth next morning with the hopes anyhow of finding out whether the Contessa had been to tea with Major Flint, or on what day she was going… There she was, just opposite the post-office, and there – oh, shame! – was Major Benjy on his way to the tram, in light-hearted conversation with her. It was a slight consolation that Captain Puffin was there too.

  Miss Mapp quickened her steps to a little tripping run.

  ‘Dear Contessa, so sorry I am late,’ she said. ‘Such a lot of little things to do this morning. (Major Benjy! Captain Puffin!) Oh, how naughty of you to have begun your shopping without me!’

  ‘Only been to the grocers,’ said the Contessa. ‘Major Benjy has been so amusing that I haven't got on with my shopping at all. I have written to Cecco, to say that there is no one so witty.’

  (Major Benjy! thought Miss Mapp bitterly, remembering how long it had taken her to arrive at that. And ‘witty’. She had not arrived at that yet.)

  ‘No, indeed!’ said the Major. ‘It was the Contessa, Miss Mapp, who has been so entertaining.’

  ‘I'm sure she would be,’ said Miss Mapp, with an enormous smile. ‘And, oh, Major Benjy, you'll miss your tram unless you hurry, and get no golf at all, and then be vexed with us for keeping you. You men always blame us poor women.’

  ‘Well, upon my word, what's a game of golf compared with the pleasure of being with the ladies?’ asked the Major, with a great fat bow.

  ‘I want to catch that tram,’ said Puffin quite distinctly, and Miss Mapp found herself more nearly forgetting his inebriated insults than ever before.

  ‘You poor Captain Puffin,’ said the Contessa, ‘you shall catch it. Be off, both of you, at once. I will not say another word to either of you. I will never forgive you if you miss it. But to-morrow afternoon, Major Benjy.’

  He turned round to bow again, and a bicycle luckily (for the rider) going very slowly, butted softly into him behind.

  ‘Not hurt?’ called the Contessa. ‘Good! Ah, Miss Mapp, let us get to our shopping! How well you manage those men! How right you are about them! They want their golf more than they want us, whatever they may say. They would hate us, if we kept them from their golf. So sorry not to have been able to play bridge with you yesterday, but an engagement. What a busy place Tilling is. Let me see! Where is the list of things that Figgis told me to buy? That Figgis! A roller-towel for his pantry, and some blacking for his boots, and some flannel I suppose for his fat stomach. It is all for Figgis. And there is that swift Mrs Plais
tow. She comes like a train with a red light in her face and wheels and whistlings. She talks like a telegram – Good morning, Mrs Plaistow.’

  ‘Enjoyed my game of bridge, Contessa,’ panted Diva. ‘Delightful game of bridge yesterday.’

  The Contessa seemed in rather a hurry to reply. But long before she could get a word out Miss Mapp felt she knew what had happened…

  ‘So pleased,’ said the Contessa quickly. ‘And now for Figgis's towels, Miss Mapp. Ten and sixpence apiece, he says. What a price to give for a towel! But I learn house-keeping like this, and Cecco will delight in all the economies I shall make. Quick, to the draper's, lest there should be no towels left.’

  In spite of Figgis's list, the Contessa's shopping was soon over, and Miss Mapp having seen her as far as the corner, walked on, as if to her own house, in order to give her time to get to Mr Wyse's, and then fled back to the High Street. The suspense was unbearable: she had to know without delay when and where Diva and the Contessa had played bridge yesterday. Never had her eye so rapidly scanned the movement of passengers in that entrancing thoroughfare in order to pick Diva out, and learn from her precisely what had happened… There she was, coming out of the dyer's with her basket completely filled by a bulky package, which it needed no ingenuity to identify as the late crimson-lake. She would have to be pleasant with Diva, for much as that perfidious woman might enjoy telling her where this furtive bridge-party had taken place, she might enjoy even more torturing her with uncertainty. Diva could, if put to it, give no answer whatever to a direct question, but, skilfully changing the subject, talk about something utterly different.

  ‘The crimson-lake,’ said Miss Mapp, pointing to the basket. ‘Hope it will turn out well, dear.’

  There was rather a wicked light in Diva's eyes.

  ‘Not crimson-lake,’ she said. ‘Jet-black.’

  ‘Sweet of you to have it dyed again, dear Diva,’ said Miss Mapp. ‘Not very expensive, I trust?’

  ‘Send the bill in to you, if you like,’ said Diva.

  Miss Mapp laughed very pleasantly.

  ‘That would be a good joke,’ she said. ‘How nice it is that the dear Contessa takes so warmly to our Tilling ways. So amusing she was about the commissions Figgis had given her. But a wee bit satirical, do you think?’

  This ought to put Diva in a good temper, for there was nothing she liked so much as a few little dabs at somebody else. (Diva was not very good-natured.)

  ‘She is rather satirical,’ said Diva.

  ‘Oh, tell me some of her amusing little speeches!’ said Miss Mapp enthusiastically. ‘I can't always follow her, but you are so quick! A little coarse too, at times, isn't she? What she said the other night when she was playing Patience, about the queens and kings wasn't quite – was it? And the toothpick.’

  ‘Yes. Toothpick,’ said Diva.

  ‘Perhaps she has bad teeth,’ said Miss Mapp; ‘it runs in families, and Mr Wyse's, you know – We're lucky, you and I.’

  Diva maintained a complete silence, and they had now come nearly as far as her door. If she would not give the information that she knew Miss Mapp longed for, she must be asked for it, with the uncertain hope that she would give it then.

  ‘Been playing bridge lately, dear?’ asked Miss Mapp.

  ‘Quite lately,’ said Diva.

  ‘I thought I heard you say something about it to the Contessa. Yesterday, was it? Whom did you play with?’

  Diva paused, and, when they had come quite to her door, made up her mind.

  ‘Contessa, Susan, Mr Wyse, me,’ she said.

  ‘But I thought she never played with Mr Wyse,’ said Miss Mapp.

  ‘Had to get a four,’ said Diva. ‘Contessa wanted her bridge. Nobody else.’

  She popped into her house.

  There is no use in describing Miss Mapp's state of mind, except by saying that for the moment she quite forgot that the Contessa was almost certainly going to tea with Major Benjy to-morrow.

  12

  ‘Peace on earth and mercy mild’ sang Miss Mapp, holding her head back with her uvula clearly visible. She sat in her usual seat close below the pulpit, and the sun streaming in through a stained-glass window opposite made her face of all colours, like Joseph's coat. Not knowing how it looked from outside, she pictured to herself a sort of celestial radiance coming from within, though Diva, sitting opposite, was reminded of the iridescent hues observable on cold boiled beef. But then, Miss Mapp had registered the fact that Diva's notion of singing alto was to follow the trebles at the uniform distance of a minor third below, so that matters were about square between them. She wondered between the verses if she could say something very tactful to Diva, which might before next Christmas induce her not to make that noise…

  Major Flint came in just before the first hymn was over, and held his top-hat before his face by way of praying in secret, before he opened his hymn-book. A piece of loose holly fell down from the window-ledge above him on the exact middle of his head, and the jump that he gave was, considering his baldness, quite justifiable. Captain Puffin, Miss Mapp was sorry to see, was not there at all. But he had been unwell lately with attacks of dizziness, one of which had caused him, in the last game of golf that he had played, to fall down on the eleventh green and groan. If these attacks were not due to his lack of perseverance, no right-minded person could fail to be very sorry for him.

  There was a good deal more peace on earth as regards Tilling than might have been expected considering what the week immediately before Christmas had been like. A picture by Miss Coles (who had greatly dropped out of society lately, owing to her odd ways) called ‘Adam’, which was certainly Mr Hopkins (though no one could have guessed) had appeared for sale in the window of a dealer in pictures and curios, but had been withdrawn from public view at Miss Mapp's personal intercession and her revelation of whom, unlikely as it sounded, the picture represented. The unchivalrous dealer had told the artist the history of its withdrawal, and it had come to Miss Mapp's ears (among many other things) that quaint Irene had imitated the scene of intercession with such piercing fidelity that her servant, Lucy-Eve, had nearly died of laughing. Then there had been clandestine bridge at Mr Wyse's house on three consecutive days, and on none of these occasions was Miss Mapp asked to continue the instruction which she had professed herself perfectly willing to give to the Contessa. The Contessa, in fact there seemed to be no doubt about it – had declared that she would sooner not play bridge at all than play with Miss Mapp, because the effort of not laughing would put an unwarrantable strain on those muscles which prevented you from doing so… Then the Contessa had gone to tea quite alone with Major Benjy, and though her shrill and senseless monologue was clearly audible in the street as Miss Mapp went by to post her letter again, the Major's Dominic had stoutly denied that he was in, and the notion that the Contessa was haranguing all by herself in his drawing-room was too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment… And Diva's dyed dress had turned out so well that Miss Mapp gnashed her teeth at the thought that she had not had hers dyed instead. With some green chiffon round the neck, even Diva looked quite distinguished – for Diva.

  Then, quite suddenly, an angel of Peace had descended on the distracted garden-room, for the Poppits, the Contessa and Mr Wyse all went away to spend Christmas and the New Year with the Wyses of Whitchurch. It was probable that the Contessa would then continue a round of visits with all that coroneted luggage, and leave for Italy again without revisiting Tilling. She had behaved as if that was the case, for taking advantage of a fine afternoon, she had borrowed the Royce and whirled round the town on a series of calls, leaving PPC cards everywhere, and saying only (so Miss Mapp gathered from Withers) ‘Your mistress not in? So sorry,’ and had driven away before Withers could get out the information that her mistress was very much in, for she had a bad cold.

  But there were the PPC cards, and the Wyses with their future connections were going to Whitchurch, and after a few hours of rage against all that had been going
on, without revenge being now possible, and of reaction after the excitement of it, a different reaction set in. Odd and unlikely as it would have appeared a month or two earlier, when Tilling was seething with duels, it was a fact that it was possible to have too much excitement. Ever since the Contessa had arrived, she had been like an active volcano planted down among dangerously inflammable elements, and the removal of it was really a matter of relief. Miss Mapp felt that she would be dealing again with materials whose properties she knew, and since, no doubt, the strain of Susan's marriage would soon follow, it was a merciful dispensation that the removal of the volcano granted Tilling a short restorative pause. The young couple would be back before long, and with Susan's approaching elevation certainly going to her head, and making her talk in a manner wholly intolerable about the grandeur of the Wyses of Whitchurch, it was a boon to be allowed to recuperate for a little, before settling to work afresh to combat Susan's pretensions. There was no fear of being dull: for plenty of things had been going on in Tilling before the Contessa flared on the High Street, and plenty of things would continue to go on after she had taken her explosions elsewhere.

  By the time that the second lesson was being read the sun had shifted from Miss Mapp's face, and enabled her to see how ghastly dear Evie looked when focused under the blue robe of Jonah, who was climbing out of the whale. She had had her disappointments to contend with, for the Contessa had never really grasped at all who she was. Sometimes she mistook her for Irene, sometimes she did not seem to see her, but never had she appeared fully to identify her as Mr Bartlett's wee wifie. But then, dear Evie was very insignificant even when she squeaked her loudest. Her best friends, among whom was Miss Mapp, would not deny that. She had been wilted by nonrecognition; she would recover again, now that they were all left to themselves.

  The sermon contained many repetitions and a quantity of split infinitives. The Padre had once openly stated that Shakespeare was good enough for him, and that Shakespeare was guilty of many split infinitives. On that occasion there had nearly been a breach between him and Mistress Mapp, for Mistress Mapp had said: ‘But then you are not Shakespeare, dear Padre.’ And he could find nothing better to reply than ‘Hoots!’… There was nothing more of interest about the sermon.