Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “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 housekeeping 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.

  CHAPTER XII.

  “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 un-warrantable 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 P.P.C. 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 P.P.C. 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 excitemen
t 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 focussed 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 wifey. 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 non-recognition; 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.

  At the end of the service Miss Mapp lingered in the church looking at the lovely decorations of holly and laurel, for which she was so largely responsible, until her instinct assured her that everybody else had shaken hands and was wondering what to say next about Christmas. Then, just then, she hurried out.

  They were all there, and she came like the late and honoured guest (Poor Diva).

  “Diva, darling,” she said. “Merry Christmas! And Evie! And the Padre. Padre dear, thank you for your sermon! And Major Benjy! Merry Christmas, Major Benjy. What a small company we are, but not the less Christmassy. No Mr. Wyse, no Susan, no Isabel. Oh, and no Captain Puffin. Not quite well again, Major Benjy? Tell me about him. Those dreadful fits of dizziness. So hard to understand.”

  She beautifully succeeded in detaching the Major from the rest. With the peace that had descended on Tilling, she had forgiven him for having been made a fool of by the Contessa.

  “I’m anxious about my friend Puffin,” he said. “Not at all up to the mark. Most depressed. I told him he had no business to be depressed. It’s selfish to be depressed, I said. If we were all depressed it would be a dreary world, Miss Elizabeth. He’s sent for the doctor. I was to have had a round of golf with Puffin this afternoon, but he doesn’t feel up to it. It would have done him much more good than a host of doctors.”

  “Oh, I wish I could play golf, and not disappoint you of your round, Major Benjy,” said she.

  Major Benjy seemed rather to recoil from the thought. He did not profess, at any rate, any sympathetic regret.

  “And we were going to have had our Christmas dinner together to-night,” he said, “and spend a jolly evening afterwards.”

  “I’m sure quiet is the best thing for Captain Puffin with his dizziness,” said Miss Mapp firmly.

  A sudden audacity seized her. Here was the Major feeling lonely as regards his Christmas evening: here was she delighted that he should not spend it “jollily” with Captain Puffin … and there was plenty of plum-pudding.

  “Come and have your dinner with me,” she said. “I’m alone too.”

  He shook his head.

  “Very kind of you, I’m sure, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, “but I think I’ll hold myself in readiness to go across to poor old Puffin, if he feels up to it. I feel lost without my friend Puffin.”

  “But you must have no jolly evening, Major Benjy,” she said. “So bad for him. A little soup and a good night’s rest. That’s the best thing. Perhaps he would like me to go in and read to him. I will gladly. Tell him so from me. And if you find he doesn’t want anybody, not even you, well, there’s a slice of plum-pudding at your neighbour’s, and such a warm welcome.”

  She stood on the steps of her house, which in summer were so crowded with sketchers, and would have kissed her hand to him had not Diva been following close behind, for even on Christmas Day poor Diva was capable of finding something ill-natured to say about the most tender and womanly action … and Miss Mapp let herself into her house with only a little wave of her hand…

  Somehow the idea that Major Benjy was feeling lonely and missing the quarrelsome society of his debauched friend was not entirely unpleasing to her. It was odd that there should be anybody who missed Captain Puffin. Who would not sooner play golf all alone (if that was possible) than with him, or spend an evening alone rather than with his companionship? But if Captain Puffin had to be missed, she would certainly have chosen Major Benjy to be the person who missed him. Without wishing Captain Puffin any unpleasant experience, she would have borne with equanimity the news of his settled melancholia, or his permanent dizziness, for Major Benjy with his bright robustness was not the sort of man to prove a willing comrade to a chronically dizzy or melancholic friend. Nor would it be right that he should be so. Men in the prime of life were not meant for that. Nor were they meant to be the victims of designing women, even though Wyses of Whitchurch… He was saved from that by their most opportune departure.

  In spite of her readiness to be interrupted at any moment, Miss Mapp spent a solitary evening. She had pulled a cracker with Withers, and severely jarred a tooth over a threepenny-piece in the plum-pudding, but there had been no other events. Once or twice, in order to see what the night was like, she had gone to the window of the garden-room, and been aware that there was a light in Major Benjy’s house, but when half-past ten struck, she had despaired of company and gone to bed. A little carol-singing in the streets gave her a Christmas feeling, and she hoped that the singers got a nice supper somewhere.

  Miss Mapp did not feel as genial as usual when she came down to breakfast next day, and omitted to say good-morning to her rainbow of piggies. She had run short of wool for her knitting, and Boxing Day appeared to her a very ill-advised institution. You would have imagined, thought Miss Mapp, as she began cracking her egg, that the tradespeople had had enough relaxation on Christmas Day, especially when, as on this occasion, it was immediately preceded by Sunday, and would have been all the better for getting to work again. She never relaxed her efforts for a single day in the year, and why ——

  An overpowering knocking on her front-door caused her to stop cracking her egg. That imperious summons was succeeded by but a moment of silence, and then it began again. She heard the hurried step of Withers across the hall, and almost before she could have been supposed to reach the front door, Diva burst into the room.

  “Dead!” she said. “In his soup. Captain Puffin. Can’t wait!”

  She whirled out again and the front door banged.

  Miss Mapp ate her egg in three mouthfuls, had no marmalade at all, and putting on the Prince of Wales’s cloak tripped down into the High Street. Though all shops were shut, Evie was there with her market-basket, eagerly listening to what Mrs. Brace, the doctor’s wife, was communicating. Th
ough Mrs. Brace was not, strictly speaking, “in society,” Miss Mapp waived all social distinctions, and pressed her hand with a mournful smile.

  “Is it all too terribly true?” she asked.

  Mrs. Brace did not take the smallest notice of her, and, dropping her voice, spoke to Evie in tones so low that Miss Mapp could not catch a single syllable except the word soup, which seemed to imply that Diva had got hold of some correct news at last. Evie gave a shrill little scream at the concluding words, whatever they were, as Mrs. Brace hurried away.

  Miss Mapp firmly cornered Evie, and heard what had happened. Captain Puffin had gone up to bed last night, not feeling well, without having any dinner. But he had told Mrs. Gashly to make him some soup, and he would not want anything else. His parlour-maid had brought it to him, and had soon afterwards opened the door to Major Flint, who, learning that his friend had gone to bed, went away. She called her master in the morning, and found him sitting, still dressed, with his face in the soup which he had poured out into a deep soup-plate. This was very odd, and she had called Mrs. Gashly. They settled that he was dead, and rang up the doctor, who agreed with them. It was clear that Captain Puffin had had a stroke of some sort, and had fallen forward into the soup which he had just poured out…

  “But he didn’t die of his stroke,” said Evie in a strangled whisper. “He was drowned.”

  “Drowned, dear?” said Miss Mapp.

  “Yes. Lungs were full of ox-tail, oh, dear me! A stroke first, and he fell forward with his face in his soup-plate and got his nose and mouth quite covered with the soup. He was drowned. All on dry land and in his bedroom. Too terrible. What dangers we are all in!”

  She gave a loud squeak and escaped, to tell her husband.

  Diva had finished calling on everybody, and approached rapidly.

  “He must have died of a stroke,” said Diva. “Very much depressed lately. That precedes a stroke.”