by E. F. Benson
EPILOGUE
Miss Mapp went to the garden-room and sat at her window....
It was a warm, bright day of February, and a butterfly was enjoyingitself in the pale sunshine on the other window, and perhaps (so MissMapp sympathetically interpreted its feelings) was rather annoyed thatit could not fly away through the pane. It was not a white butterfly,but a tortoise-shell, very pretty, and in order to let it enjoy itselfmore, she opened the window and it fluttered out into the garden. Beforeit had flown many yards, a starling ate most of it up, so the starlingenjoyed itself too.
Miss Mapp fully shared in the pleasure first of the tortoise-shell andthen of the starling, for she was enjoying herself very much too, thoughher left wrist was terribly stiff. But Major Benjy was so cruel: heinsisted on her learning that turn of the wrist which was so importantin golf.
"Upon my word, you've got it now, Miss Elizabeth," he had said to heryesterday, and then made her do it all over again fifty times more.("Such a bully!") Sometimes she struck the ground, sometimes she struckthe ball, sometimes she struck the air. But he had been very muchpleased with her. And she was very much pleased with him. She forgotabout the butterfly and remembered the starling.
It was idle to deny that the last six weeks had been a terrific strain,and the strain on her left wrist was nothing to them. The worst tensionof all, perhaps, was when Diva had bounced in with the news that theContessa was coming back. That was so like Diva: the only foundation forthe report proved to be that Figgis had said to her Janet that Mr. Wysewas coming back, and either Janet had misunderstood Figgis, or Diva(far more probably) had misunderstood Janet, and Miss Mapp only hopedthat Diva had not done so on purpose, though it looked like it. Stupidas poor Diva undoubtedly was, it was hard for Charity itself to believethat she had thought that Janet really said that. But when this reportproved to be totally unfounded, Miss Mapp rose to the occasion, and saidthat Diva had spoken out of stupidity and not out of malice towardsher....
Then in due course Mr. Wyse had come back and the two Poppits had comeback, and only three days ago one Poppit had become a Wyse, and they hadall three gone for a motor-tour on the Continent in the Royce. Verylikely they would go as far south as Capri, and Susan would stay withher new grand Italian connections. What she would be like when she gotback Miss Mapp forbore to conjecture, since it was no use anticipatingtrouble; but Susan had been so grandiose about the Wyses, multiplyingtheir incomes and their acreage by fifteen or twenty, so Miss Mappconjectured, and talking so much about county families, that theliveliest imagination failed to picture what she would make of theFaragliones. She already alluded to the Count as "My brother-in-lawCecco Faraglione," but had luckily heard Diva say "Faradiddleony" in aloud aside, which had made her a little more reticent. Susan had takenthe insignia of the Member of the British Empire with her, as she atonce conceived the idea of being presented to the Queen of Italy byAmelia, and going to a court ball, and Isabel had taken her manuscriptbook of Malaprops and Spoonerisms. If she put down all the Italianmalaprops that Mrs. Wyse would commit, it was likely that she wouldbring back two volumes instead of one.
Though all these grandeurs were so rightly irritating, the departure ofthe "young couple" and Isabel had left Tilling, already shocked andshattered by the death of Captain Puffin, rather flat and purposeless.Miss Mapp alone refused to be flat, and had never been so full ofpurpose. She felt that it would be unpardonably selfish of her if sheregarded for a moment her own loss, when there was one in Tilling whosuffered so much more keenly, and she set herself with admirablesingleness of purpose to restore Major Benjy's zest in life, and fillthe gap. She wanted no assistance from others in this: Diva, forinstance, with her jerky ways would be only too apt to jar on him, andher black dress might remind him of his loss if Miss Mapp had asked herto go shares in the task of making the Major's evenings less lonely.Also the weather, during the whole of January, was particularlyinclement, and it would have been too much to expect of Diva to come allthe way up the hill in the wet, while it was but a step from the Major'sdoor to her own. So there was little or nothing in the way ofwinter-bridge as far as Miss Mapp and the Major were concerned. Piquetwith a single sympathetic companion who did not mind being rubiconned atthreepence a hundred was as much as he was up to at present.
With the end of the month a balmy foretaste of spring (such as hadencouraged the tortoiseshell butterfly to hope) set in, and the Majorused to drop in after breakfast and stroll round the garden with her,smoking his pipe. Miss Mapp's sweet snowdrops had begun to appear, andgreen spikes of crocuses pricked the black earth, and the sparrows werehaving such fun in the creepers. Then one day the Major, who was goingout to catch the 11.20 tram, had a "golf-stick," as Miss Mapp sofoolishly called it, with him, and a golf-ball, and after making adreadful hole in her lawn, she had hit the ball so hard that itrebounded from the brick-wall, which was quite a long way off, and cameback to her very feet, as if asking to be hit again by thegolf-stick--no, golf-club. She learned to keep her wonderfully observanteye on the ball and bought one of her own. The Major lent her amashie--and before anyone would have thought it possible, she hadlearned to propel her ball right over the bed where the snowdrops grew,without beheading any of them in its passage. It was the turn of thewrist that did that, and Withers cleaned the dear little mashieafterwards, and put it safely in the corner of the garden-room.
To-day was to be epoch-making. They were to go out to the real links bythe 11.20 tram (consecrated by so many memories), and he was to call forher at eleven. He had qui-hied for porridge fully an hour ago.
After letting out the tortoise-shell butterfly from the window lookinginto the garden, she moved across to the post of observation on thestreet, and arranged snowdrops in a little glass vase. There were a fewover when that was full, and she saw that a reel of cotton was close athand, in case she had an idea of what to do with the remainder. Eleveno'clock chimed from the church, and on the stroke she saw him coming upthe few yards of street that separated his door from hers. So punctual!So manly!
Diva was careering about the High Street as they walked along it, andMiss Mapp kissed her hand to her.
"Off to play golf, darling," she said. "Is that not grand? Aureservoir."
Diva had not missed seeing the snowdrops in the Major's button-hole, andstood stupefied for a moment at this news. Then she caught sight ofEvie, and shot across the street to communicate her suspicions. QuaintIrene joined then and the Padre.
"Snowdrops, i'fegs!" said he....
_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes and Errata | | | | The following words were found in both hyphenated and | | unhyphenated form in the text. The number of instances of | | each is given in parentheses. | | | | |book-case (4) |bookcase (1) | | | |dress-maker's (1) |dress-maker's (1) | | | |dress-maker (1) |dress-maker (1) | | | |eye-glass (4) |eyeglass (4) | | | |parlour-maid (3) |parlourmaid (5) | | | |tea-gown (9) |teagown (2) | | | |tip-toed (1) |tiptoed (2) | | | |tortoise-shell (3) |tortoiseshell (1) | | | | | The following typographical errors were corrected: | | | | |Error |Correction | | | |appraoch |approach | | | |aleady |already | | | |Consciousnness |Consciousness | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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