Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  ‘Not worth speaking of,’ said Lucia. ‘She asked me if I would like to have a menagerie and keep tigers and sharks in the garden-room. That sort of thing. Mere raving. Come out, Georgie. I want to do a little shopping. Coplen told me there were some excellent greengages from the garden which he was taking down to Twistevant’s.’

  It was the hour when the collective social life of Tilling was at its briskest. The events of the evening before, tea-parties and games of bridge had become known and were under discussion, as the ladies of the place with their baskets on their arms collided with each other as they popped in and out of shops and obstructed the pavements. Many parcels were being left at Wasters which Miss Mapp now occupied, for jumble-sales on behalf of deserving objects were justly popular, since everybody had a lot of junk in their houses, which they could not bear to throw away, but for which they had no earthly use. Diva had already been back from Taormina to her own house (as Elizabeth to hers) and had disinterred from a cupboard of rubbish a pair of tongs, the claws of which twisted round if you tried to pick up a lump of coal and dropped it on the carpet, but which were otherwise perfect. Then there was a scuttle which had a hole in the bottom, through which coal dust softly dribbled, and a candlestick which had lost one of its feet, and a glass inkstand once handsome, but now cracked. These treasures, handsome donations to a jumble-sale, but otherwise of no particular value, she carried to her own hall, where donors were requested to leave their offerings, and she learned from Withers, Miss Mapp’s parlourmaid, the disagreeable news that the jumble-sale was to be held here. The thought revolted her; all the rag-tag and bob-tail of Tilling would come wandering about her house, soiling her carpets and smudging her walls. At this moment Miss Mapp herself came in carrying the tea kettle and the boot-jack and the other things. She had already thought of half a dozen withering retorts she might have made to Lucia.

  ‘Elizabeth, this will never do,’ said Diva. ‘I can’t have the jumble-sale held here. They’ll make a dreadful mess of the place.’

  ‘Oh no, dear,’ said Miss Mapp, with searing memories of a recent interview in her mind. ‘The people will only come into your hall where you see there’s no carpet, and make their purchases. What a beautiful pair of tongs! For my sale? Fancy! Thank you, dear Diva.’

  ‘But I forbid the jumble-sale to be held here,’ said Diva. ‘You’ll be wanting to have a menagerie here next.’

  This was amazing luck.

  ‘No, dear, I couldn’t dream of it,’ said Miss Mapp. ‘I should hate to have tigers and sharks all over the place. Ridiculous!’

  ‘I shall put up a merry-go-round in quaint Irene’s studio at Taormina,’ said Diva.

  ‘I doubt if there’s room, dear,’ said Miss Mapp, scoring heavily again, ‘but you might measure. Perfectly legitimate, of course, for if my house may be given over to parties for paupers, you can surely have a merry-go-round in quaint Irene’s and I a jumble-sale in yours.’

  ‘It’s not the same thing,’ said Diva. ‘Providing beautiful tableaux in your garden is quite different from using my panelled hall to sell kettles and coal-scuttles with holes in them.’

  ‘I dare say I could find a good many holes in the tableaux,’ said Miss Mapp.

  Diva could think of no adequate verbal retort to such coruscations, so for answer she merely picked up the tongs, the coal-scuttle, the candlestick and the inkstand, and put them back in the cupboard from which she had just taken them, and left her tenant to sparkle by herself.

  Most of the damaged objects for the jumble-sale must have arrived by now, and after arranging them in tasteful groups Miss Mapp sat down in a rickety basket-chair presented by the Padre for fell meditation. Certainly it was not pretty of Diva (no one could say that Diva was pretty) to have withdrawn her treasures, but that was not worth thinking about. What did demand her highest mental activities was Lucia’s conduct. How grievously different she had turned out to be from that sweet woman for whom she had originally felt so warm an affection, whom she had planned to take so cosily under her wing, and administer in small doses as treats to Tilling society! Lucia had turned upon her and positively bitten the caressing hand. By means of showy little dinners and odious flatteries, she had quite certainly made Major Benjy and the Padre and the Wyses and poor Diva think that she was a very remarkable and delightful person and in these manoeuvres Miss Mapp saw a shocking and sinister attempt to set herself up as the Queen of Tilling society. Lucia had given dinner-parties on three consecutive nights since her return, she had put herself on the committee for this fête, which (however much Miss Mapp might say she could not possibly permit it) she had not the slightest idea how to stop, and though Lucia was only a temporary resident here, these weeks would be quite intolerable if she continued to inflate herself in this presumptuous manner. It was certainly time for Miss Mapp to reassert herself before this rebel made more progress, and though dinner-giving was unusual in Tilling, she determined to give one or two most amusing ones herself, to none of which, of course, she would invite Lucia. But that was not nearly enough: she must administer some frightful snub (or snubs) to the woman. Georgie was in the same boat and must suffer too, for Lucia would not like that. So she sat in this web of crippled fire-irons and napless rugs like a spider, meditating reprisals. Perhaps it was a pity, when she needed allies, to have quarrelled with Diva, but a dinner would set that right. Before long she got up with a pleased expression. ‘That will do to begin with: she won’t like that at all,’ she said to herself and went out to do her belated marketing.

  She passed Lucia and Georgie, but decided not to see them, and, energetically waving her hand to Mrs Bartlett, she popped into Twistevant’s, from the door of which they had just come out. At that moment quaint Irene, after a few words with the Padre, caught sight of Lucia, and hurried across the street to her. She was hatless, as usual, and wore a collarless shirt and knickerbockers unlike any other lady of Tilling, but as she approached Lucia her face assumed an acid and awful smile, just like somebody else’s, and then she spoke in a cooing velvety voice that was quite unmistakable.

  ‘The boy stood on the burning deck, Lulu,’ she said. ‘Whence all but he had fled, dear. The flames that lit the battle-wreck, sweet one, shone round him—’

  Quaint Irene broke off suddenly, for within a yard of her at the door of Twistevant’s appeared Miss Mapp. She looked clean over all their heads, and darted across the street to Wasters, carrying a small straw basket of her own delicious greengages.

  ‘Oh, lor!’ said Irene. ‘The Mapp’s in the fire, so that’s done. Yes. I’ll recite for you at your fête. Georgie, what a saucy hat! I was just going to Taormina to rout out some old sketches of mine for the Art Show, and then this happens. I wouldn’t have had it not happen for a hundred pounds.’

  ‘Come and dine to-night,’ said Lucia warmly, breaking all records in the way of hospitality.

  ‘Yes, if I needn’t dress, and you’ll send me home afterwards. I’m half a mile out of the town and I may be tipsy, for Major Benjy says you’ve got jolly good booze, “quai-hai”, the King, God bless him! Good-bye.’

  ‘Most original!’ said Lucia. ‘To go on with what I was telling you, Georgie, Liblib said she would not have her little home-sanctuary — Good morning, Padre. Miss Mapp shoved her way into Mallards this morning without ringing, and broke the chain which was on the door, such a hurry was she in to tell me that she will not have her little home-sanctuary, as I was just saying to Georgie, invaded by the rag-tag and bobtail of Tilling.’

  ‘Hoots awa!’ said the Padre. ‘What in the world has Mistress Mapp got to do with it? An’ who’s holding a jumble-sale in Mistress Plaistow’s? I keeked in just now wi’ my bit o’ rubbish and never did I see such a mess. Na, na! Fair play’s a jool, an’ we’ll go richt ahead. Excuse me, there’s wee wifie wanting me.’

  ‘It’s war,’ said Georgie as the Padre darted across to the Mouse, who was on the other side of the street, to tell her what had happened.

  ‘No, I’m j
ust defending myself,’ said Lucia. ‘It’s right that people should know she burst my door-chain.’

  ‘Well, I feel like the fourth of August, 1914,’ said Georgie. ‘What do you suppose she’ll do next?’

  ‘You may depend upon it, Georgie, that I shall be ready for her whatever it is,’ said Lucia. ‘I shan’t raise a finger against her, if she behaves. But she shall ring the bell and I won’t be dictated to and I won’t be called Lulu. However, there’s no immediate danger of that. Come, Georgie, let us go home and finish our sketches. Then we’ll have them framed and send them to Liblib for the picture exhibition. Perhaps that will convince her of my general good will, which I assure you is quite sincere.’

  The jumble-sale opened next day, and Georgie, having taken his picture of Lucia’s house and her picture of his to be framed in a very handsome manner, went on to Wasters with the idea of buying anything that could be of the smallest use for any purpose, and thus showing more good will towards the patroness. Miss Mapp was darting to and fro with lures for purchasers, holding the kettle away from the light so that the hole in its bottom should not be noticed, and she gave him a smile that looked rather like a snarl, but after all very like the smile she had for others. Georgie selected a hearth-brush, some curtain-rings and a kettle-holder.

  Then in a dark corner he came across a large cardboard tray, holding miscellaneous objects with the label ‘All 6d Each’. There were thimbles, there were photographs with slightly damaged frames, there were chipped china ornaments and cork-screws, and there was the picture of the Landgate which he had painted himself and given Miss Mapp. Withers, Miss Mapp’s parlourmaid, was at a desk for the exchange of custom by the door, and he exhibited his purchases for her inspection.

  ‘Ninepence for the hearth-brush and threepence for the curtain-rings,’ said Georgie in a trembling voice, ‘and sixpence for the kettle-holder. Then there’s this little picture out of the sixpenny tray, which makes just two shillings.’

  Laden with these miscellaneous purchases he went swiftly up the street to Mallards. Lucia was at the window of the garden-room, and her gimlet eye saw that something had happened. She threw the sash up.

  ‘I’m afraid the chain is on the door, Georgie,’ she called out. ‘You’ll have to ring. What is it?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Georgie.

  He deposited the hearth-brush, the curtain-rings and the kettle-holder in the hall, and hurried out to the garden-room with the picture.

  ‘The sketch I gave her,’ he said. ‘In the sixpenny tray. Why, the frame cost a shilling.’

  Lucia’s face became a flint.

  ‘I never heard of such a thing, Georgie,’ said she. ‘The monstrous woman!’

  ‘It may have got there by mistake,’ said Georgie, frightened at this Medusa countenance.

  ‘Rubbish, Georgie,’ said Lucia.

  Pictures for the annual exhibition of the Art Society of which Miss Mapp was President had been arriving in considerable numbers at Wasters, and stood stacked round the walls of the hall where the jumble-sale had been held a few days before, awaiting the judgment of the hanging committee which consisted of the President, the Treasurer and the Secretary: the two latter were Mr and Mrs Wyse. Miss Mapp had sent in half a dozen water-colours, the Treasurer a study in still-life of a teacup, an orange and a wallflower, the Secretary a pastel portrait of the King of Italy, whom she had seen at a distance in Rome last spring. She had reinforced the vivid impression he had made on her by photographs. All these, following the precedent of the pictures of Royal Academicians at Burlington House, would be hung on the line without dispute, and there could not be any friction concerning them. But quaint Irene had sent some at which Miss Mapp felt lines must be drawn. They were, as usual, very strange and modern: there was one, harmless but insane, that purported to be Tilling church by moonlight: a bright green pinnacle all crooked (she supposed it was a pinnacle) rose up against a strip of purple sky and the whole of the rest of the canvas was black. There was the back of somebody with no clothes on lying on an emerald-green sofa: and, worst of all, there was a picture called ‘Women Wrestlers’, from which Miss Mapp hurriedly averted her eyes. A proper regard for decency alone, even if Irene had not mimicked her reciting ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’, would have made her resolve to oppose, tooth and nail, the exhibition of these shameless athletes. Unfortunately Mr Wyse had the most unbounded admiration for quaint Irene’s work, and if she had sent in a picture of mixed wrestlers he would probably have said, ‘Dear me, very powerful!’ He was a hard man to resist, for if he and Miss Mapp had a very strong difference of opinion concerning any particular canvas he broke off and fell into fresh transports of admiration at her own pictures and this rather disarmed opposition.

  The meeting of the hanging committee was to take place this morning at noon. Half an hour before that time, an errand-boy arrived at Wasters from the frame-maker’s bringing, according to the order he had received, two parcels which contained Georgie’s picture of Mallards and Lucia’s picture of Mallards Cottage: they had the cards of their perpetrators attached. ‘Rubbishy little daubs,’ thought Miss Mapp to herself, ‘but I suppose those two Wyses will insist.’ Then an imprudent demon of revenge suddenly took complete possession of her, and she called back the boy, and said she had a further errand for him.

  At a quarter before twelve the boy arrived at Mallards and rang the bell. Grosvenor took down the chain and received from him a thin square parcel labelled ‘With care’. One minute afterwards he delivered a similar parcel to Foljambe at Mallards Cottage, and had discharged Miss Mapp’s further errand. The two maids conveyed these to their employers, and Georgie and Lucia, tearing off the wrappers, found themselves simultaneously confronted with their own pictures. A typewritten slip accompanied each, conveying to them the cordial thanks of the hanging committee and its regrets that the limited wall-space at its disposal would not permit of these works of art being exhibited.

  Georgie ran out into his little yard and looked over the paling of Lucia’s garden. At the same moment Lucia threw open the window of the garden-room which faced towards the paling.

  ‘Georgie, have you received—’ she called.

  ‘Yes,’ said Georgie.

  ‘So have I.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

  Lucia’s face assumed an expression eager and pensive, the far-away look with which she listened to Beethoven. She thought intently for a moment.

  ‘I shall take a season ticket for the exhibition,’ she said, ‘and constantly—’

  ‘I can’t quite hear you,’ said Georgie.

  Lucia raised her voice.

  ‘I shall buy a season ticket for the exhibition,’ she shouted, ‘and go there every day. Believe me, that’s the only way to take it. They don’t want our pictures, but we mustn’t be small about it. Dignity, Georgie.’

  There was nothing to add to so sublime a declaration and Lucia went across to the bow-window, looking down the street. At that moment the Wyses’ Royce lurched out of Porpoise Street, and turned down towards the High Street. Lucia knew they were both on the hanging committee which had just rejected one of her own most successful sketches (for the crooked chimney had turned out beautifully), but she felt not the smallest resentment towards them. No doubt they had acted quite conscientiously and she waved her hand in answer to a flutter of sables from the interior of the car. Presently she went down herself to the High Street to hear the news of the morning, and there was the Wyses’ car drawn up in front of Wasters. She remembered then that the hanging committee met this morning, and a suspicion, too awful to be credible, flashed through her mind. But she thrust it out, as being unworthy of entertainment by a clean mind. She did her shopping and on her return took down a pale straw-coloured sketch by Miss Mapp that hung in the garden-room, and put in its place her picture of Mallards Cottage and the crooked chimney. Then she called to mind that powerful platitude, and said to herself that time would show . . .

&nb
sp; Miss Mapp had not intended to be present at the desecration of her garden by paupers from the workhouse and such low haunts. She had consulted her solicitor, about her power to stop the entertainment, but he assured her that there was no known statute in English law, which enabled her to prevent her tenant giving a party. So she determined, in the manner of Lucia and the Elizabethan fête at Riseholme, to be unaware of it, not to know that any fête was contemplated, and never afterwards to ask a single question about it. But as the day approached she suspected that the hot tide of curiosity, rapidly rising in her, would probably end by swamping and submerging her principles. She had seen the Padre dressed in a long black cloak, and carrying an axe of enormous size, entering Mallards; she had seen Diva come out in a white satin gown and scuttle down the street to Taormina, and those two prodigies taken together suggested that the execution of Mary Queen of Scots was in hand. (Diva as the Queen!) She had seen boards and posts carried in by the garden-door and quantities of red cloth, so there was perhaps to be a stage for these tableaux. More intriguing yet was the apparition of Major Benjy carrying a cardboard crown glittering with gold paper. What on earth did that portend? Then there was her fruit to give an eye to: those choir-boys, scampering all over the garden in the intervals between their glees, would probably pick every pear from the tree. She starved to know what was going on, but since she avoided all mention of the fête herself, others were most amazingly respectful to her reticence. She knew nothing, she could only make these delirious guesses, and there was that Lucia, being the centre of executioners and queens and choir-boys, instead of in her proper place, made much of by kind Miss Mapp, and enjoying such glimpses of Tilling society as she chose to give her. ‘A fortnight ago,’ thought kind Miss Mapp, ‘I was popping in and out of the house, and she was Lulu. Anyhow, that was a nasty one she got over her picture, and I must bear her no grudge. I shall go to the fête because I can’t help it, and I shall be very cordial to her and admire her tableaux. We’re all Christians together, and I despise smallness.’