 Preface and Chapter 1, Part 1 of Mismap. I lingered at the window of the garden room from which Mismap so often and so ominously looked forth. To the left was the front of her house, straight ahead the steep cobbled way with a glimpse of the high street at the end, to the right the crooked chimney and the church. The street was populous with passengers, but search as I might I could see none who ever so remotely resembled the objects of her vigilance. Chapter 1, Part 1. Miss Elizabeth Mapp might have been forty, and she had taken advantage of this opportunity by being just a year or two older. Her face was of high vivid colour and was corrugated by chronic rage and curiosity, but these vivifying emotions had preserved to her an astonishing activity of mind and body, which fully accounted for the comparative adolescence with which she would have been credited anywhere except in the charming little town which she had inhabited so long. Anger and the gravest suspicions about everybody had kept her young and on the boil. She sat on this hot July morning like a large bird of prey at the very convenient window of her garden room, the ample bow of which formed a strategical point of high value. This garden room, solid and spacious, was built at right angles to the front of her house and looked straight down the very interesting street which debouched at its lower end into the high street of Tilling. Exactly opposite her front door the road turned sharply, so that as she looked out from this projecting window her own house was at right angles on her left, the street in question plunged steeply downwards in front of her, and to her right she commanded an uninterrupted view of its further course which terminated in the disused graveyard surrounding the big Norman church. Anything of interest about the church, however, could be gleaned from a guidebook, and Mismap did not occupy herself much with such coldly venerable topics. Far more to her mind was the fact that between the church and her strategic window was the cottage in which her gardener lived, and she could thus see, when not otherwise engaged, whether he went home before twelve or failed to get back to her garden again by one, for he had to cross the street in front of her very eyes. Similarly she could observe whether any of his abandoned family ever came out from her garden door weighted with suspicious baskets which might contain smuggled vegetables. Only yesterday morning she had hurried forth with a dangerous smile to intercept a laden urchin with inquiries as to what was in that nice basket. On that occasion that nice basket had proved to contain a strawberry net which was being sent for repair to the gardener's wife, so there was nothing more to be done except verify its return. This she did from a side window of the garden room which commanded the strawberry beds. She could sit quite close to that, for it was screened by the large-leaved branches of a fig tree, and she could spy unseen. Otherwise this road to the right leading up to the church was of no great importance, except on Sunday morning when she could get a practically complete list of those who attended divine service, for no one of real interest lived in the humble dwellings which lined it. To the left was the front of her own house at right angles to the strategic window, and with regard to that a good many useful observations might be and were made. She could, from behind a curtain, negligently half drawn across the side of the window nearest the house, have an eye on her housemaid at work, and notice if she leaned out of a window or made remarks to a friend passing in the street or waved salutations with a duster. Swiffed upon such discoveries she would execute a flank marked across the few steps of garden and steal into the house, noiselessly ascend the stairs and catch the offender red-handed at this public dalliance. But all such domestic espionage to right and left was flavorless and insipid compared to the tremendous discoveries which daily and hourly awaited the trained observer of the street that lay directly in front of her window. There was little that concerned the social movements of tilling that could not be proved, or at least reasonably conjectured, from Miss Mapp's airy. Just below her house on the left stood Major Flint's residence, of George and Red Brick like her own, and opposite was that of Captain Puffin. They were both bachelors, though Major Flint was generally supposed to have been the hero of some amazingly amorous adventures in early life, and always turned the subject with great abruptness when anything connected with dueling was mentioned. It was not, therefore, unreasonable to infer that he had had experiences of a bloody sort, and color was added to this romantic conjecture by the fact that in damp, rheumatic weather his left arm was very stiff, and he had been known to say that his wound troubled him. What wound that was no one exactly knew. It might have been anything from a vaccination mark to a sabercut. For having said that his wound troubled him he would invariably add, sure, that's enough about an old campaigner. And though he might subsequently talk of nothing else except the old campaigner, he drew a veil over his old campaigns. That he had been in service in India was indeed probable by his referring to lunch as Tiffin, and calling to his parlor maid with the ejaculation of Kihay. As her name was Sarah this was clearly a reminiscence of days in bungalows. When not in a rage his manner to his own sex was bluff and hearty, but whether in a rage or not his manner to the fairies or a lovely woman was gallant and pompous in the extreme. He certainly had a lock of hair in a small gold specimen case on his watch chain, and had been seen to kiss it when, rather carelessly, he thought that he was unobserved. Miss Mapp's eye, as she took her seat in her window on this sunny July morning, lingered for a moment on the major's house before she proceeded to give a disgusted glance at the pictures on the back page of her morning illustrated paper, which chiefly represented young women dancing in rings in the surf or lying on the beach in attitudes which Miss Mapp would have scorned to adjust herself to. Neither the major nor Captain Puffin were very early risers, but it was about time that the first signals of animation might be expected. Indeed at this moment she quite distinctly heard the muffled roar, which to her experienced ear was easily interpreted to be Kihay. So the major has just come down to breakfast, she mechanically inferred, and it's close on ten o'clock. Let me see. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, porridge morning. Her penetrating glance shifted to the house exactly opposite to that in which it was porridge morning, and even as she looked a hand was thrust out of a small upper window and deposited a sponge on the sill. Then from the inside the lower sash was thrust firmly down so as to prevent the sponge from blowing away and falling into the street. Captain Puffin, it was therefore clear, was a little later than the major that morning, but he always shaved and brushed his teeth before his bath so that there was but a few minutes between them. General maneuvers entailing the gradual burstings of fluttering life from the chrysalis of the night, the emergence of the ladies of the town with their wicker baskets in their hands for housekeeping purchases, the exodus of men to catch the eleven-twenty a.m. steam tram out to the golf-links, and other first steps in the duties and diversions of the day did not get into full swing till half past ten. And Mismap had ample time to skim the headlines of her paper and indulge in chaste meditations about the occupants of these two houses before she need really make herself alert to Miss Nothing. Of the two, Major Flint, without doubt, was the more attractive to the feminine sense. For years Mismap had tried to cajole him into marrying her and had not nearly finished yet. With his record of adventure, with the romantic reek of India, and camphor, in the tiger-skin of the rugs that strewed his hall and surged like a rising tide up the wall, with his haughty and gallant manner, with his loud shawings and sniffs at nonsense and balderdash, his thumpings on the table to emphasise an argument, with his wound and his prodigious swipes at golf, his intolerance of any who believed in ghosts, microbes, or vegetarianism, there was something dashing and risky about him. You felt that you were in the presence of some hot coal straight from the furnace of creation. Captain Puffin, on the other hand, was of clay so different that he could hardly be considered to be made of clay at all. He was lame and short and meager, with strings of peaceful beads and papuan aprons in his hall, instead of wild tiger-skins, and had a jerky, inattentive manner and a high pitched voice. Yet to Mismap's mind there was something behind his unimpressiveness that had a mysterious quality, all the more so because nothing of it appeared on the surface. Nobody could call Major Flint, with his ballings and his sniffings, the least mysterious. He laid all his loud cards on the table, great hulking, kings, and aces. But Mismap felt far from sure that Captain Puffin did not hold a joker, which would sometime come to light. The idea of being Mrs. Puffin was not so attractive as the other, but she occasionally gave it her remote consideration. Yet there was mystery about them both, in spite of the fact that most of their movements were so amply accounted for. As a rule they played golf together in the morning, reposed in the afternoon, as could easily be verified by anyone standing on a still day in the road between their houses, and listening to the loud and rhythmical breathings that fanned the tranquil air. Certainly went out to tea parties afterwards and played bridge till dinner time. Or if no such entertainment was proffered them, occupied arm-chairs at the country club, or laboriously amassed a hundred at billiards. Though tea parties were profuse, dining out was very rare at tilling. Patience, or a jigsaw puzzle occupied the hour or two that intervened between domestic supper and bedtime. But again and again Miss Mapp had seen lights burning in the sitting-room of those two neighbours, at an hour when such lights as were still in evidence at tilling were strictly confined to bedrooms, and should indeed have been extinguished there. And only last week, being plucked from slumber by some unaccountable indigestion, for which she blamed a small green apple. She had seen at no less than twelve-thirty in the morning the lights in Captain Puffin's sitting-room still shining through the blind. This had excited her so much that at risk of toppling into the street she had craned her neck from her window and observed a similar illumination in the house of Major Flint. They were not together then, for in that case any prudent householder, and God knew that they both of them scraped and saved enough, or if he didn't know Miss Mapp did, would have quenched his own lights if he were talking to his friend in his friend's house. The next night, the pangs of indigestion having completely vanished, she set her alarm clock at the same timeless hour and had observed exactly the same phenomenon. Such late hours, of course, amply accounted for these late breakfasts, but why, so Miss Mapp pithily asked herself, why these late hours? Of course they both kept summertime, whereas most of tilling utterly refused, except when going by train, to alter their watches because Mr. Lloyd George told them to, but even allowing for that. Then she perceived that summertime made it later than ever for its adherence, so that was no excuse. Miss Mapp had a mind that was incapable of believing the improbable, and the current explanation of these late hours was very improbable indeed. Major Flint often told the world in general that he was revising his diaries, and that the only uninterrupted time which he could find in this pleasant horror of life at tilling was when he was alone in the evening. Captain Puffin, on his part, confessed to a student's curiosity about the ancient history of tilling with regard to which he was preparing a monograph. He could talk, when permitted, by the hour about the reclamation from the sea of the marshland south of the town, and about the old Roman road which was built on a raised causeway, of which traces remained. But it argued, so thought Miss Mapp, an unprecedented egoism on the part of Major Flint, and an equally unprecedented love of antiquities on the part of Captain Puffin, that they should prosecute their studies, with gas at the present price, till such hours. No, Miss Mapp knew better than that, but she had not made up her mind exactly what it was that she knew. She mentally rejected the idea that egoism, even in these days of diaries and autobiographies, and antiquities accounted for so much study, with the same healthy intolerance with which a vigorous stomach rejects unwholesome food, and did not allow herself to be insidiously poisoned by its retention. But as she took up her light aluminum opera glasses to make sure whether it was Isabelle Poppet or not, who was now stepping with that high prancing tread into the stationers in the High Street, she exclaimed to herself for the three hundred and sixty-fifth time after breakfast, it's very baffling, for it was precisely a year to-day since she had first seen those mysterious midnight squares of illuminated blind. Baffling, in fact, was a word that constantly made short appearances in Miss Mapp's vocabulary, though its retention for a whole year over one subject was unprecedented. But never yet had baffled sullied her wells of pure undefiled English. Movement had begun. Mrs. Pleistow, carrying her wicker basket, came round the corner by the church, in the direction of Miss Mapp's window, and as there was a temporary coolness between them, following violent heat, with regard to some worsted of brilliant rose-matter hue which a forgetful draper had sold to Mrs. Pleistow, having definitely promised it to Miss Mapp, but Miss Mapp's large mindedness scorned to recall the sordid details of this paltry appropriation. The heat had quite subsided, and Miss Mapp was, for her part, quite prepared to let the coolness regain the normal temperature of cordiality the moment that Mrs. Pleistow returned that worsted. Outwardly and publicly friendly relationships had been resumed, and as the coolness had lasted six weeks or so, it was probable that the worsted had already been incorporated into the ornamental border of Mrs. Pleistow's jumper or winter scarf, and a proper expression of regret would have to do instead. So the nearer Mrs. Pleistow approached, the more invisible she became to Miss Mapp's eye, and when she was within saluting distance had vanished altogether. Simultaneously Miss Poppet came out of the stationers in the High Street. Mrs. Pleistow turned the corner below Miss Mapp's window, and went bobbing along down the steep hill. She walked with the motion of those mechanical dolls sold in the street, which have three legs set as spokes to a circle, so that their feet emerge from their dress with dutch and rigid regularity, and her figure had a certain squat rotundity that suited her gait. She distinctly looked into Captain Puffin's dining-room window as she passed, and with the misplaced juvenility, so characteristic of her, waggled her plump little hand at it. At the corner beyond Major Flint's house she hesitated a moment, and turned off down the entry into the side street where Mr. Wise lived. The dentist lived there, too, and as Mr. Wise was away on the continent of Europe Mrs. Pleistow was almost certain to be visiting the other. Rapidly Miss Mapp remembered that at Mrs. Bartlett's bridge party yesterday Mrs. Pleistow had selected soft chocolates for consumption instead of those stuffed with nougat or almonds. That furnished additional evidence for the dentist, for generally you could not get a nougat chocolate at all if Godiva Pleistow had been in the room for more than a minute or two. As she crossed the narrow cobbled roadway with the grass growing luxuriously between the rounded pebbles, she stumbled and recovered herself with a swift little forward run, and the circular feet twinkled with the rapidity of those of a thrush, scutting over the lawn. By this time Isabelle Poppet had advanced as far as the fish-shop three doors below the turning down which Mrs. Pleistow had vanished. Her prancing progress paused there for a moment, and she waited with one knee highly elevated like a statue of a curvetting horse before she finally decided to pass on. But she passed no farther than the fruit-shop next door, and took the three steps that elevated it from the street in a single prance with her Roman nose high in the air. Presently she emerged but with no obvious rotundity like that of a melon projecting from her basket so that Miss Mapp could see exactly what she had purchased, and went back to the fish-shop again. Surely she would not put fish on the top of fruit, and even as Miss Mapp's lucid intelligence rejected this supposition the true solution struck her. Ice, she said to herself, and sure enough projecting from the top of Miss Poppet's basket when she came out was an angular peak wrapped up in paper already wet. Miss Poppet came up the street, and Miss Mapp put up her illustrated paper again with the revolting picture of the brightened sea nymphs turned towards the window. Peeping out behind it she observed that Miss Poppet's basket was apparently oozing with bright Venus blood, and felt certain that she had bought red currents. That, coupled with the ice, made conjecture complete. She had bought red currents slightly damaged, or they would not have oozed so speedily, in order to make that iced red current fool of which she had so freely partaken at Miss Mapp's last bridge party. That was a very scurvy trick, for iced red current fool was an invention of Miss Mapp's who, when it was praised, said that she had inherited the recipe from her grandmother. But Miss Poppet had evidently entered the lists against Grandmother Mapp, and she had as evidently guessed that quite inferior fruit, fruit that was distinctly off, was undetectable when severely iced. Miss Mapp could only hope that the fruit in the basket now bobbing past her window was so much off that it had begun to ferment. Fermented red current fool was nasty to the taste, and, if persevered in, disastrous in its effects. General unpopularity might be needed to teach Miss Poppet not to trespass on Grandmother Mapp's preserves. Isabelle Poppet lived with a flashy and condescending mother just round the corner beyond the gardener's cottage, and opposite the west end of the church. They were comparatively new inhabitants of Tilling, having settled here only two or three years ago, and Tilling had not, yet, quite ceased to regard them as rather suspicious characters. Suspicions smoldered, though it blazed no longer. They were certainly rich, and Miss Mapp suspected them of being profiteers. They kept a butler of whom they were both inconsiderable awe, who used almost to shrug his shoulders when Miss Poppet gave him an order. They kept a motor car to which Miss Poppet was apt to allude more frequently than would have been natural if she had always been accustomed to one, and they went to Switzerland for a month every winter and to Scotland for the shooting season, as Miss Poppet terribly remarked every summer. This all looked very black, and though Isabelle conformed to the manners of Tilling in doing household shopping every morning with her wicker basket, and buying damaged fruit for food, and in dressing in the original homemade manner indicated by good breeding and narrow incomes, Miss Mapp was sadly afraid that these habits were not the outcome of chaste and instinctive simplicity, but of the ambition to be received by the old families of Tilling as one of them. But what did a true Tilling night want with a butler and a motor car? And if these were not sufficient to cast grave doubts on the sincerity of the inhabitants of ye smaller house, there was still very vivid in Miss Mapp's mind that dreadful moment, undimmed by the years that had passed over it, when Miss Poppet broke the silence at an altogether too sumptuous lunch, by asking Mrs. Playstow if she did not find these super-tacks a grievous burden on our little incomes. Miss Mapp had drawn in her breath sharply, as if in pain, and after a few gasps turned the conversation. Worst of all, perhaps, because more recent, was the fact that Miss Poppet had just received the dignity of the MBE, or member of the Order of the British Empire, and put it on her cards too, as if to keep the scandal alive. Her services in connection with the Tilling Hospital had been entirely confined to putting her motor car at its disposal when she did not want it herself, and not a single member of the Tilling Working Club, which had knitted its fingers to the bone and made enough seven-tailed bandages to reach to the moon, had been offered a similar decoration. If anyone had, she would have known what to do, a stinging letter to the Prime Minister saying that she worked not with hope of distinction, but from pure patriotism, would have certainly been Miss Mapp's rejoinder. She actually drafted the letter, when Mrs. Poppet's name appeared, and diligently waded through column after column of subsequent lists to make sure that she, the originator of the Tilling Working Club, had not been the victim of a similar insult. Mrs. Poppet was a climber, that was what she was, and Miss Mapp was obliged to confess that very nimble she had been. The butler and the motor car, so frequently at the disposal of Mrs. Poppet's friends, and the incessant lunches and teas had done their work. She had fed, rather than starved, tilling into submission, and Miss Mapp felt that she alone upheld the dignity of the old families. She was positively the only old family, and a solitary spinster at that, who had not surrendered to the Poppets. Naturally she did not carry her staunchness to the extent, so to speak, of a hunger strike, for that would be singular conduct, only worthy of suffragettes, and she partook of the Poppet's hospitality to the fullest extent possible. But, here her principles came in, she never returned the hospitality of the member of the British Empire, though she occasionally asked Isabelle to her house, and abused her soundly on all possible occasions. This spiteful retrospect passed swiftly and smoothly through Miss Mapp's mind, and did not in the least take off from the acuteness with which she observed the tide in the affairs of tilling which, after the ebb of the night, was now flowing again, nor did it, a few minutes after Isabelle's disappearance round the corner, prevent her from hearing the faint tinkle of the telephone in her own house. At that she started to her feet, but paused again at the door. She had shrewd suspicions about her servants with regard to the telephone. She was convinced, though at present she had not been able to get any evidence on the point, that both her cook and her parlor maid used it for their own base purposes at her expense, and that their friends habitually employed it for conversation with them. And perhaps, who knows, her housemaid was the worst of the lot, for she affected an almost incredible stupidity with regard to the instrument, and pretended not to be able either to speak through it or to understand its cacklings. All that might very well be assumed in order to divert suspicion, so Miss Mapp paused by the door to let any of these delinquents get deep in conversation with her friend. A soft and stealthy advance towards the room called the morning-room, a small apartment opening out of the hall and used chiefly for the bestowal of hats and cloaks and umbrellas, would then enable her to catch one of them red-mouthed, or at any rate to overhear fragments of conversation which would supply equally direct evidence. She had got no farther than the garden door into her house, when withers her parlor maid came out. Miss Mapp, thereupon, began to smile and hum a tune. Then the smile widened and the tune stopped. Yes, withers, she said. Were you looking for me? Yes, Miss, said withers. Miss Poppet has just rung you up. Miss Mapp looked much surprised. And to think that the telephone should have rung without my hearing it, she said, I must be growing deaf withers in my old age. What does Miss Poppet want? She hopes you will be able to go to tea this afternoon and play bridge. She expects that a few friends may look in at a quarter to four. End of Chapter 1 Part 1, read by Kara Schellenberg, www.kray.org, on August 9th, 2008, in San Diego, California. Chapter 1 Part 2 of Miss Mapp. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rachel Ellen. A flood of lurid light poured into Miss Mapp's mind. To expect that a few friends may look in was the orthodox way of announcing a regular party to which she had not been asked. And Miss Mapp knew, as if by a special revelation, that if she went she would find that she may be eight to complete two tables of bridge. When the butler opened the door he would undoubtedly have in his hand the half sheet of paper on which were written the names of the expected friends, and if the caller's name was not on that list, he would tell her with brazen impudence that neither Mrs. Poppet nor Miss Poppet were at home, while, before the baffled visitor had turned her back, he would admit another caller who duly appeared on his reference paper. So then the poppets were giving a bridge-party to which she had only been bidden at the last moment, clearly to take the place of some expected friend who had developed influenza, lost an aunt or been obliged to go into London. Here too was the explanation of why, as she had overheard yesterday, Major Flint and Captain Puffin were only intending to play one round of golf today. And to come back by the two-thirty train. And why seek any further for the explanation of the lump of ice and the red currants, probably damaged, which she had observed Isabel Purchase, and anyone could see, at least Miss Mapp could, why she had gone to the stationers in the High Street just before—packs of cards. Who the expected friend was who had disappointed Mrs. Poppet could be thought out later, at present, as Miss Mapp smiled at withers and hummed her tune again, she had to settle whether she was going to be delighted to accept or obliged to decline. The argument in favour of being obliged to decline was obvious, Mrs. Poppet deserved to be served out, for not including her among the original guests, and if she declined it was quite probable that at this late hour her hostess might not be able to get anyone else, and so one of her tables would be completely spoiled. In favour of accepting was the fact that she would get a rubber of bridge and a good tea, and would be able to say something disagreeable about the red current fool, which would serve Miss Poppet out for attempting to crib her ancestral dishes. A bright, a joyous, a diabolical idea struck her, and she went herself to the telephone, and gentilily wiped the place where withers had probably breathed on it. So kind of you, Isabel, she said, but I am very busy today, and you didn't give me much notice, did you, so I'll try to look in if I can, shall I? I might be able to squeeze it in. There was a pause, and Miss Map knew that she had put Isabel in a hold. If she successfully tried to get somebody else, Miss Map might find she could squeeze it in, and there would be nine. If she failed to get someone else, and Miss Map couldn't squeeze it in, then there would be seven. Isabel wouldn't have a tranquil moment all day. Ah, do squeeze it in, she said, in those horrid, weedling tones which for some reason Major Flint found so attractive. That was one of the weak points about him, and there were many, many others. But that was among those which Miss Map found it difficult to condone. If I possibly can, said Miss Map, but at this late hour, good-bye, dear, or only au revoir, we hope? She heard Isabel's polite laugh at this nearly new and delicious Malaprop before she rang off. Isabel collected Malaprops and wrote them out in a notebook. If you reversed the notebook and began at the other end, you would find the collection of spoonerisms which were very amusing too. T., followed by a bridge-party, was in summer the chief manifestation of the spirit of hospitality and tilling. Mrs. Poppet, it is true, had attempted to do something in the way of dinner parties, but though she was at liberty to give as many dinner parties as she pleased, nobody else had followed her ostentatious example. Dinner parties entailed a higher scale of living. Miss Map, for one, had accurately counted the cost of having three hungry people to dinner, and found that one such dinner party was not nearly compensated for, in the way of expense, by being invited to three subsequent dinner parties by your guests. Voluptuous teas were the rule, after which you really wanted no more than little bits of things, a cup of soup, a slice of cold tart, or a dished up piece of fish and some toasted cheese. Then, after the excitement of bridge, and bridge was very exciting in tilling, a jigsaw puzzle or patience cooled your brain and composed your nerves. In winter, however, with its scarcity of daylight, tilling commonly gave evening bridge parties, and asked the requisite number of friends to drop in after dinner, though everybody knew that everybody else had only partaken of bits and things. Probably the ruinous price of coal had something to do with these evening bridge parties, for the fire that warmed your room when you were alone would warm all your guests as well, and then, when your hospitality was returned, you could let your sitting-room fire go out. But though Miss Map was already planning something in connection with Winter Bridge, Winter was a long way off yet. Before Miss Map got back to her window in the garden-room, Mrs. Poppett's great offensive motor-car, which she always alluded to as, the Royce, had come round the corner and, stopping opposite Major Flint's house, was entirely extinguishing all survey of the street beyond. It was clear enough then that she had sent the Royce to take the two out to the golf-links, so that they should have time to play there round and catch the two-twenty back to tilling again, so as to be in good time for the bridge party. Even as she looked, Major Flint came out of his house on one side of the Royce and Captain Puffin on the other. The Royce obstructed their view of each other, and simultaneously each of them shouted across to the house of the other. Captain Puffin omitted a loud, koo-ee, Major. An Australian ejaculation learned on his voyages, while Major Flint bellowed, koo-ee, Captain. Which, all the world knew, was of oriental origin. The noise each of them made prevented him from hearing the other, and presently one in a fuming hurry to start, ran round in front of the car at the precise moment that the other ran round behind it, and they both banged loudly on each other's knockers. These knocks were not so precisely simultaneous as the shouts had been, and this led to mutual discovery, hailed with peals of falsetto laughter on the part of Captain Puffin and the more manly guffaws of the Major. After that the Royce lumbered down the grass-grown cobbles of the street, and after a great deal of reversing managed to turn the corner. Miss Mapp set off with her basket to do her shopping. She carried in it the weekly books, which she would leave with payment but not without argument at the tradesman's shops. There was an item for Suet, which she intended to resist to the last breath in her body, though her butcher would probably surrender long before that. There was an item for eggs at the dairy which she might have to pay though it was a monstrous overcharge. She had made up her mind about the laundry. She intended to pay that bill with an icy countenance and say, Good morning for ever, or words to that effect, unless the proprietor instantly produced the article of clothing which had been lost in the wash, like King John's treasures, all refunded an ample sum for the replacing of it. All these quarrelsome errands were meat and drink to Miss Mapp. Tuesday morning, the day on which she paid and disputed her weekly bills, was as enjoyable as Sunday mornings when, sitting close under the pulpit, she noted the glaring inconsistencies and grammatical errors in the discourse. After the bills were paid and business was done, there was pleasure to follow, for there was a fitting on at the dress-makers, the fitting on of a tea-gown to be worn at winter evening bridge-parties, which, unless Miss Mapp was sadly mistaken, would astound and agonize by its magnificence all who set eyes on it. She had found the description of it, as worn by Mrs. Titus W. Trout, in an American fashion paper, it was of what was described as Kingfisher Blue, and had lumps and wedges of lace round the edge of the skirt, and orange chiffon round the neck. As she set off with her basketful of tradesmen's books, she pictured to herself with watering-mouth, the fury, the jealousy, the madness of envy which it would raise in all properly constituted breasts. In spite of her malignant curiosity and her cancerous suspicions about all her friends, in spite two of her restless activities, Miss Mapp was not, as might have been expected, a lady of lean and emaciated appearance. She was tall and portly, with plump hands, a broad, benignant face, and dimpled, well-nourished cheeks. An acute observer might have detected a danger warning in the side-long glances of her rather bulgy eyes, and in a certain tightness at the corners of her expansive mouth, which boated ill for any who came within snapping distance, but to a more superficial view she was a rollicking, good-natured figure of a woman. Her mode of address, too, bore out this misleading impression. Nothing, for instance, could have been more genial just now than her telephone voice to Isabel Poppet, or her smile to withers, even while she so strongly suspected her of using the telephone for her own base purposes, and as she passed along the high street, she showered little smiles and bows on acquaintances and friends. She markedly drew back her lips in speaking, being in no way ashamed of her long white teeth, and wore a practically perpetual smile when there was the least chance of being under observation. Though at sermon time on Sunday, as has already been remarked, she greedily noted the weaknesses and errors of which those twenty minutes were so rewardingly full, she sat all the time with down-dropped eyes and a pretty sacred smile on her lips, and now, when she spied on the other side of the street the figure of the vicar, she tripped slantingly across the road to him, as if by the move of a night at Chess, looking everywhere else and only perceiving him with glad surprise at the very last moment. He was a great frequenter of tea-parties, and except in Lent, an assiduous player of bridge, for a clergyman's duties, so he very properly held, were not confined to visiting the poor and exhorting the sinner. He should be a man of the world, and enter into the pleasures of his prosperous parishioners, as well as into the trials of the troubled. Being an accomplished card-player, he entered not only into their pleasures, but their pockets, and there was no lady of tilling who was not pleased to have Mr. Bartlett for a partner. His winnings, so he said, he gave annually to charitable objects, though whether the charities he selected began at home was a point on which Miss Mapp had quite made up her mind. Not a penny of that will the poor ever see, was the gist of her reflections when on disastrous days she paid him seven and nine pence. She always called him Padre, and had never actually caught him looking over his adversary's hands. Good morning, Padre! she said as soon as she perceived him. What a lovely day! The white butterflies were enjoying themselves so in the sunshine in my garden, and the swallows. Miss Mapp, as every reader will have perceived, wanted to know whether he was playing bridge this afternoon at the puppets. Major Flint and Captain Puffin certainly were, and it might be taken for granted that Godiva play-style was. With the puppets and herself that made six. Mr. Bartlett was humorously archaic in speech. He interlarded archaism with highland expressions, and his face was knobby, like a chest of drawers. Ha! good morrow, fair dame, he said, and prithee, art not thou even as ye white butterflies? Oh! Mr. Bartlett, said the fair dame with a provocative glance, naughty, comparing me to a delicious butterfly. Nay, prithee, why not, he said he? Yea, indeed, it's a day to make ye little fowls rejoice. Ha! I perceive you are on the errands of the good wife Martha. And he pointed to the basket. Yes, Tuesday morning, said Miss Mapp. I pay all my household books on Tuesday. Poor but honest, dear Padre! What a rush life is to-day! I hardly know which way to turn. Little duties in all directions. And you, you're always busy, such a busy bee! Busy bee! Busy Bartlett, quote she. Yes, I'm a busy bee to-day, Mr. Mapp. Sermon all morning. Choir practice at three. A baptism at six. No time for a walk to-day, let alone a bit turn at the gulf. Miss Mapp saw her opening, and made a busy beeline for it. Oh! but you should get regular exercise, Padre, said she. You take no care of yourself. After the choir practice now and before the baptism, you could have a brisk walk, to please me. Yes, I had meant to get a breath of air, then, said he. But your good dame-puppet has insisted that I take a wee hand at the carts with them, the wifey and I. Privy shall we meet there? That makes seven without me. Thought Miss Mapp in parenthesis. Allowed, she said. If I can squeeze it in, Padre, I have promised dear Isabel to do my best. Well, then Alassi can do no more, said he. All reservoir, then. Miss Mapp was partly pleased, partly annoyed, by the agility with which the Padre brought out her own particular joke. It was she who had brought it down to Tilling, and she felt she had an option on it at the end of every interview, if she meant, as she had done on this occasion, to bring it out. On the other hand, it was gratifying to see how popular it had become. She had heard it last month when on a visit to a friend at that sweet and refined village called Rise Home. It was rather looked down on there, as not being sufficiently intellectual. But within a week of Miss Mapp's return, Tilling rang with it, and she let it be understood that she was the original humorist. Godive a playstow came whizzing along the pavement, a short, stout, breathless body who might, so thought Miss Mapp, have acted up to the full and fell associations of her Christian name, without exciting the smallest curiosity on the part of the crowd. Miss Mapp had much the same sort of figure, but her height, so she was perfectly satisfied to imagine, converted corpulence into majesty. The swift alternation of those Dutch-looking feet gave the impression that Miss's playstow was going at a prodigious speed, but they could stop revolving without any warning, and then she stood still. Just when a collision with Miss Mapp seemed imminent, she came to a dead halt. It was as well to be quite certain that she was going to the poppets, and Miss Mapp quite forgave and forgot about the worsted until she had found out. She could never quite manage the indelicacy of saying, Godive a, whatever Miss's playstow's figure and age might happen to be, but always addressed her as Diva, very affectionately, whenever they were on speaking terms. What a lovely morning, Diva darling, she said, and noticing that Mr Bartlett was well out of earshot, the white butterflies were enjoying themselves so in the sunshine of my garden, and the swallows. Godiva was telegraphic in speech. Lucky birds, she said, no teeth, beaks! Miss Mapp remembered her disappearance round the dentist's corner half an hour ago, and her own firm inference on the problem. Too fake, darling, she said, so sorry. Wisdom, said Godiva, out at one o'clock, gas, ready for bridge this afternoon, playing poppets. If I can squeeze it in, dear, said Miss Mapp, such a hustle to-day. Diva put her hand to her face as, Wisdom gave her an awful twinge. Of course, she did not believe in the hustle, but her pangs prevented her from caring much. Meet you then, she said, shall be all comfortable then. This was more than could be borne, and Miss Mapp hastily interrupted. Oh, reservoir, Diva dear! she said, with extreme acerbity, and Diva's feet began swiftly revolving again. The problem about the bridge-party thus seemed to be solved. The two poppets, the two Bartlets, the Mater and the Captain, with Diva darling and herself made eight, and Miss Mapp with a sudden recrudescence of indignation against Isabelle with regard to the red current fool, and the belated invitation, made up her mind that she would not be able to squeeze it in, thus leaving the party one short. Even apart from the red current fool, it served the poppets right for not asking her originally. But only when, as seemed now perfectly clear, somebody else had disappointed them. But just as she emerged from the butcher's shop, having gained a complete victory in that matter of the suet, without expending the last breath in her body or anything like it, the whole of the seemingly solid structure came toppling to the ground. For on emerging, flushed with triumph, leaving the baffled butcher to try his tricks on somebody else if he chose but not on Miss Mapp, she ran straight into the disgrace of tilling and her sex, the suffragette, the suffragette post-impressionist artist, who painted from the nude, both male and female, the socialist and the Germanophile, all incarnate in one frame. In spite of these execrable antecedents, it was quite in vain that Miss Mapp had tried to poison the collective mind of tilling against this creature. If she hated anybody, and she undoubtedly did, she hated Irene Coles. The bitterest part of it all was that if Miss Coles was amused at anybody, and she undoubtedly was, she was amused at Miss Mapp. Miss Coles was strolling along in the attire to which tilling generally had got accustomed, but Miss Mapp never. She had an old wide-awake hat jammed down on her head, a tall collar and stock, a large loose coat, knicker-bockers, and grey stockings. In her mouth was a cigarette. In her hand she swung the orthodox wicker basket. She had certainly been to the other fishmongers at the end of the high street, for a lobster, revived perhaps after a sojourn on the ice by this warm sun, which the butterflies and the swallows had been rejoicing in, was climbing with claws and waving legs over the edge of it. Irene removed her cigarette from her mouth and did something in the gutter which is usually associated with the floor of third-class smoking-carriages. Then her handsome boyish face, more boyish because her hair was closely clipped, broke into a broad grin. Hello, Mapp! she said, been giving the tradesmen what for on Tuesday morning? Miss Mapp found it extremely difficult to bear this obviously insolent form of address without a spasm of rage. Irene called her Mapp because she chose to, and Mapp, more bitterness, felt it wiser not to provoke coals. She had a dreadful, humorous tongue, an indecent disregard of public or private opinion, and her gift of mimicry was as appalling as her opinion about the Germans. Sometimes Miss Mapp alluded to her as Quaint Irene, but that was as far as she got in the way of her prizes. Oh, you sweet thing, she said, treasure! Irene, in some ghastly way, seemed to take note of this, why men like Captain Puffin and Major Flint found Irene fetching and killing was more than Miss Mapp could understand or wanted to understand. Quaint Irene looked down at her basket. Why, there's my lunch going over the top like those beastly British Tommies, she said. Get back, love! Miss Mapp could not quite determine whether love was a sarcastic echo of treasure. It seemed probable. Oh, what a dear little lobster, she said. Look at his sweet claws! I shall do more than look at them soon, said Irene, poking it into her basket again. Come and have tiffin, Kihi, I've got to look after myself today. What has happened to your devoted Lucy? asked Miss Mapp. Irene lived in a very queer way with one gigantic maid, who, but for her sex, might have been in the guards. Ill, I suspect scarlet fever, said Irene. Very infectious, isn't it? I was up nursing her all last night. Miss Mapp recoiled. She did not share Major Flint's robust views about microbes. But I hope, dear, you've thoroughly disinfected. Oh, yes, soap and water, said Irene. By the way, are you poppeting this afternoon? If I can squeeze it in, said Miss Mapp. We'll meet again, then. Oh. A reservoir, said Miss Mapp instantly. No, not that silly old chestnut, said Irene. I wasn't going to say that. I was only going to say, oh, do come to tiffin. You and me and the lobster. Then you and me. But it's a bore about Lucy. I was painting her. Fine figure. Gorgeous legs. You wouldn't like to sit for me till she's well again. Miss Mapp gave a little squeal and bolted into her dress-makers. She always felt battered after a conversation with Irene and needed Kingfisher Blue to restore her. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Part 1 of Miss Mapp. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Miss Mapp, I. E. F. Benson. Chapter 2, Part 1 There is not in all England a town so blatantly picturesque as Tilling, nor one for the lover of level marshland, of tall reedy dykes, of enormous sunsets and rims of blue sea on the horizon, with so fortunate an environment. The hill on which it is built rises steeply from the level land, and crowned by the great grave church so conveniently close to Miss Mapp's residence, positively consists of quaint corners, rough cast and timber cottages, and mellow Georgian fronts. Corners and quaintness, gems, glimpses, and bits are an obsession to the artist, and in consequence, during the summer months, not only did the majority of its inhabitants turn out into the cobbled ways with sketching books, canvases, and paint boxes, but every morning brought into the town cherubunks from neighbouring places, loaded with passengers, many of whom joined the artistic residence, and you would have thought, until an expectation of their productions convinced you of the contrary, that some tremendous outburst of art was rivaling the Italian Renaissance. For those who were capable of tackling straight lines and the intricacies of perspective, there were the steep cobbled streets of charming and irregular architecture, while for those who rightly felt themselves colourous rather than architectural draftsmen, there was the view from the top of the hill over the marshes. There, but for one straight line to mark the horizon, and that could be easily misty, there were no petty conventionalities in the way of perspective, and the eager practitioner could almost instantly plunge into vivid greens and celestial blues, or at sunset into pinks and chromes and rose-matter. Tourists who had no pictorial gifts would pick their way among the sketchers and search the shops for cracked china and bits of brass, few if any of them left without purchasing one of the famous tilling money-boxes made in the shape of a pottery pig, who bore on his back that remarkable legend of his authenticity which ran, I won't be drove, though I am willing. Good morning, my love," said the pig of tilling. Mismap had a long shelf full of these in every colour to adorn her dining-room. The one which completed her collection of a pleasant magenta colour had only just been acquired. She called them my sweet rainbow of piggies, and often when she came down to breakfast, especially if Withers was in the room, she said, Good morning, quaint little piggies. When Withers had left the room she counted them. The corner where the street took a turn toward the church, just below the window of her garden-room, was easily the most popular stance for sketchers. You were bewildered and bowled over by bit. For the most accomplished of all there was that rarely attempted feat, the view of the steep, downward street, which in spite of all the efforts of the artists, insisted in the sketch on going uphill instead. Then, next in difficulty, was the street after it had turned, running by the gardener's cottage up to the churchyard on the church. This, in spite of its difficulty, was a very favourite subject, for it included, on the right of the street, just beyond Mismap's garden wall, the famous crooked chimney, which was continually copied from every point of view. The expert artist would draw it rather more crooked than it really was, in order that there might be no question that he had not drawn it crooked by accident. This sketch was usually negotiated from the three steps in front of Mismap's front door. Opposite the church and chimney artists would sit others, drawing the front door itself, difficult, and moistening their pencils at their cherry lips, while a little farther down the street was another battalion hard at work at the gabled front of the garden-room and its picturesque bow. It was a favourite occupation of Mismap's, when there was a decent gathering of artists outside, to pull a table right into the window of the garden-room, in full view of them, and quite unconscious of their presence, to arrange flowers there with a smiling and pensive countenance. She had other little playful public pastimes. She would get her kitten from the house and induce it to sit on the table while she diverted it with the tassel of the blind, and she would kiss it on its sweet little sooty head, or she would write letters in the window, or play patience there, and then suddenly become aware that there was no end of ladies and gentlemen looking at her. Sometimes she would come out of the house, if the steps were very full, with her own sketching paraphernalia in her hands and say, ever so coyly, may I squiggle through, or ask the squatters on her own steps if they could find a little corner for her. That was so interesting for them, they would remember afterwards that just while they were engaged on their sketches, the lady of that beautiful house at the corner, who had been playing with her kitten in the window, came out to sketch, too. She addressed gracious and yet humble remarks to them. I see you're a painting, my sweet little home. May I look? Oh, what a lovely little sketch! Once, on a never-to-be-forgotten day, she observed one of them take a camera from his pocket and rapidly focus her as she stood on the top step. She turned full-faced and smiling to the camera just in time to catch the click of the shutter. But then it was too late to hide her face, and perhaps the picture might appear in the graphic or the sketch, or among the posturing nymphs of a neighbouring watering-place. This afternoon she was content to squiggle through the sketchers, and humming a little tune, she passed up to the churchyard. Squiggle was one of her own words. Highly popular. It connoted squeezing and wiggling. There she carefully concealed herself under the boughs of the weeping ash tree directly opposite the famous south ports of the church. She had already drawn in the lines of the south porch on her sketchy book, transferring them there by means of a tracing from a photograph, so that formed a very promising beginning to her sketch. But she was nicely placed, not only with regard to her sketch, for by peeping through the pretty foliage of the tree she could command the front door of Mrs. Poppett's MBE house. Miss Mapp's plans for the bridge-party had, of course, been completely upset by the encounter with Irene in the High Street. Up till that moment she had imagined that, with the two ladies of the house and the Bartlett's and the Major and the Captain and Godiva and herself, two complete tables of bridge would be formed, and she had therefore determined that she would not be able to squeeze the party into her numerous engagements, thereby spoiling the second table. But now everything was changed. There were eight without her, and, unless at a quarter to four, she saw reason to suppose, by noting the arrivals at the house, that three bridge tables were in contemplation. She had made up her mind to squeeze it in, so that there would be nine gamblers, and Isabel or her mother, if they had any sense of hospitality to their guests, would be compelled to sit out for ever and ever. Miss Mapp had been urgently invited. Sweet Isabel had made a great point of her squeezing it in, and if Sweet Isabel, in order to be certain of a company of eight, had asked quaint Irene as well, it would serve her right. An additional reason, besides this piece of good nature in managing to squeeze it in for the sake of Sweet Isabel, lay in the fact that she would be able to take some red current fool, and, after one spoonful, exclaim, delicious, and leave the rest uneaten. The white butterflies and the swallows were still enjoying themselves in the sunshine, and so, too, were the gnats, about whose pleasure, especially when they settled on her face, Miss Mapp did not care so much. But soon she quite ceased to regard them, for, before the quaint little gilded boys on each side of the clock, above the North porch, had hammered out the three quarters, after three on their bells, visitors began to arrive at the poppet store, and Miss Mapp was very active, looking through the boughs of the weeping ash, and sitting down again to smile and ponder over her sketch, with her head a little on one side, if anybody approached. One by one the expected guests presented themselves and were admitted, Major Flint and Captain Puffin, the Padre and his wife, Darling Diva with her head muffled in a cloud, and finally Irene, still dressed as she had been in the morning, and probably reeking with scarlet fever. With the two poppets these made eight players, so as soon as Irene had gone in, Miss Mapp hastily put her sketching things away, and holding her admirably accurate drawing with its wash of sky not quite dry in her hand, hurried to the door, for it would never do to arrive after the two tables had started, since in that case it would be she who would have to sit out. Boone opened the door to her three staccato little knocks, and soquely consulted his list. She duly appeared on it and was admitted. Having banged the door behind her he crushed the list up in his hand and threw it into the fireplace. All those whose presence was desired had arrived, and Boone would turn his bow by an eye on any subsequent caller and say that his mistress was out. "'And may I put my sketching things down here, please, Boone,' said Miss Mapp, ingratiatingly, and will no one touch my drawing? It's a little wet still—the church porch.' Boone made a grunting noise like the tilling pig, and slouched away in front of her, down the passage leading to the garden, sniffing. There they were, with the two bridge-tables set out in a shady corner of the lawn, and a buffet vulgarly heaped with all sorts of dainty confections, which made Miss Mapp's mouth water, obliging her to swallow rapidly once or twice before she could manage a wide, dry smile. Isabelle advanced. "'Did you, dear,' said Miss Mapp. "'Such a rush, but manage to squeeze it in, as you wouldn't let me off.' "'Oh, that was nice of you, Miss Mapp,' said Isabelle. A wild and awful surmise seized Miss Mapp. "'And your dear mother,' she said. "'Where is Mrs. Poppet?' "'Mama had to go to town this morning. She won't be back till close on dinnertime.' Miss Mapp's smile closed up like a furled umbrella. The trap had snapped behind her. It was impossible now to squiggle away. She had completed, instead of spoiling, the second table. "'So, we're just eight,' said Isabelle, poking at her, so to speak, through the wires. Shall we have a rubber first and then some tea, or tea first? What says everybody?' Restless and hungry murmurs, like those heard at the sea-lines enclosure in the zoological gardens when feeding-time approaches, seemed to indicate tea first, and with gallant greetings from the major and archaistic welcome from the Padre, Miss Mapp headed the general drifting movement towards the buffet. There may have been tea there, but there was certainly iced coffee and lager beer and large jugs with dew on the outside, and vegetables floating in a bubbling liquid on the inside, and it was also vulgar and opulent that with one accord every one set to work in earnest, in order that the garden should present a less gross and greedy appearance. But there was no sign at presence of the red current fool which was baffling. "'And have you had a good game of golf, Major?' asked Miss Mapp, making the best of these miserable circumstances. Such a lovely day! The white butterflies were enjoying. She became aware that Diva and the Padre, who had already heard about the white butterflies, were in her immediate neighborhood and broke off. "'Which if you beat? Or should I say one?' she asked. Major Flint's long moustache was dripping with lager beer, and he made a dexterous sucking movement. "'Well, the army and the navy had it out,' he said, and if for once Britain's navy was not invincible. Hey, Puffin!' Captain Puffin limped away pretending not to hear, and took his heaped plate and brimming glass in the direction of Irene. "'But I'm sure Captain Puffin played quite beautifully, too,' said Miss Mapp, in the vain attempt to detain him. She liked to collect all the men round her, and then scold them for not talking to the other ladies. "'Well, a game's a game,' said the Major. It gets through the hours, Miss Mapp. Yes, we finished at the fourteenth hole and hurried back to more congenial society. And what have you done today? Fairy errands I'll be bound. Titania! Ha!' Suet errands and errands about a missing article of under-clothing were really the most important things that Miss Mapp had done today, now that her bridge-party scheme had so miscarried, but naturally she would not allude to these. "'A little gardening,' she said, a little sketching, a little singing. Not time to change my frock and put on something less shabby, but I wouldn't have kept Suet Isabella's bridge-party waiting for anything, and so I came straight from my painting here. Padre, I've been trying to draw the lovely south porch, but so difficult. I shall give up trying to draw and just enjoy myself with looking. And there's your dear Evie. How do you do, Evie-love?' Godiva Plastau had taken off her cloud for purposes of mastication, but wound it tightly round her head again as soon as she had eaten as much as she could manage. This had to be done on one side of her mouth or with the front teeth in the nibbling manner of a rabbit. Everybody, of course, by now knew that she had had a wisdom tooth out at one p.m. with gas, and she could allude to it without explanation. Dreamed I was playing bridge, she said, and had a hand of aces. As I played, first it went off in my hand, all over—blood. Hope it'll come true—bar the blood. Miss Mapp found herself soon afterwards partnered with Major Flint and opposed by Irene and the Padre. They had hardly begun to consider their first hands when Boone staggered out into the garden under the weight of a large wooden bucket, packed with ice, that surrounded an interior cylinder. Red current fool at last thought Miss Mapp, adding aloud, Oh, poor little me, is it, to declare? Shall I say no trumps? Mustn't consult your partner, Mapp, said Irene, puffing at the end of her cigarette at its holder. Irene was painfully literal. I don't, darling, said Miss Mapp, beginning to fizz a little. No trumps, not a trump, not any sort of trump. There, what are we playing for, by the way? Bob a hundred, said the Padre, forgetting to be either scotch or archaic. Oh, gambler! You want the poor box to be the rich box, Padre, said Miss Mapp, surveying her magnificent hand with the greatest satisfaction. If it had not contained so many court cards, she would have proposed playing for sixpence, not a shilling a hundred. All semblance of manners was invariably thrown to the winds by the ladies of Tilling when, once bridge began, primeval hatred took their place. The winners of any hand were exasperatingly condescending to the losers and the losers correspondingly bitter and tremulous. Miss Mapp failed to get her contract, as her partner's contribution to success consisted of more twos and threes than were ever seen together before, and when quaint Irene, at the end, said, Bad Luck Mapp, Miss Mapp's hands trembled so much with passion that she with difficulty marked the score. But she could command her voice sufficiently to say, Lovely of you to be sympathetic, dear. Irene, in answer, gave a short horse laugh and yield. By this time Boone had deposited at the left hand of each player a cup containing a red, creamy fluid on the surface of which bubbles intermittently appeared. Isabelle, at this moment being dummy, had strolled across from the other table to see that everybody was comfortable and provided with sustenance in times of stress, and here was clearly the proper opportunity for Miss Mapp to take a spoonful of this attempt at red current fool, and with a rye face hastily, but not too hastily, smothered in smiles, to push the revolting compound away from her. But the one spoonful that she took was so delicious and exhilarating that she was positively unable to be good for Isabelle. Instead, she drank her cup to the dregs in an absent manner while considering how many trumps were out. The red current fool made a similarly agreeable impression on Major Flint. Upon my word, he said, that's amazingly good, cooling on a hot day like this, full of champagne. Miss Mapp, seeing that it was so popular, had, of course, to claim it again as a family invention. No, dear Major, she said. There's no champagne in it. It's my Grandma Mapp's famous red current fool, with a little addition, perhaps by me. No champagne. Yolk of egg and a little cream. Dear Isabelle has got it very nearly right. The Pondray had promised to take more tricks and diamonds than he had the slightest chance of doing. His mental worry communicated itself to his voice. And why should there be nary a wee drapia champagne in it? said he, though your Grandma Mapp did invent it. Well, let's see your hand, partner. Ah, that's a sour sight. And there'll be a sour wee score again us when you're through with the playin' of it, said Irene, in tones that could not be acquitted of a mocking intent. Why the hell—Hallelujah, did you go on when I didn't support you? Even that one glass of red current fool, though there was no champagne in it, had produced, together with the certainty that her opponent had overbidden his hand, a pleasant exhilaration in Miss Mapp. But Yolk of egg, as everybody knew, was a strong stimulant. Suddenly the name red current fool seemed very amusing to her. Red current fool, she said, what a quaint old-fashioned name. I shall invent some others. I shall tell my cook to make me some gooseberry idiot, or strawberry donkey—my play, I think—a ducky little ace of spades. Ha ha! Gooseberry idiot! said her partner. Capital! You won't beat that in a hurry. And a two of spades on the top of it. You wouldn't expect to find a two of spades at the bottom of it, said the Padre, with singular acidity. The major was quick to resent this kind of comment from a man, cloth or no cloth. Well, by your leave, Bartlett, by your leave, I repeat, he said. I shall expect to find twos of spades precisely who I please, and when I want your criticism—Miss Mapp hastily intervened. And after my wee ace, a little king-piece, she said, and if my partner doesn't play the queen to it—delicious, and I play just one more—yes, lovely—partner puts wee trumpy on it. I'm not surprised. It takes more than that to surprise me. And then Padre's got another spade, I can find. Hoots! said the Padre, with a temperate disgust. The hand proceeded for a round or two in silence, during which, by winks and gestures to boon, the major got hold of another cupful of red-current fool. There was already a heavy penalty of tricks against Miss Mapp's opponents, and after a moment's refreshment the major let a club, of which at this period Miss Mapp seemed to have none. She felt happier than she had been ever since, trying to spoil Isabella's second table. She had only succeeded in completing it. Little Trumpy again, she said, putting it on with the lightness of one of the white butterflies and turning the trick. Useful, Little Trumpy! She broke off suddenly from the chant of victory, which ladies of tilling were accustomed to indulge in during cross-rups, for she discovered in her hand another more than useless little clubby. The silence that succeeded became tense in quality. Miss Mapp knew she had revoked and squeezed her brains to think how she could possibly dispose of the card, while there was a certain calmness about the Padre, which but too clearly indicated that he was quite content to wait for the inevitable disclosure. This came at the last trick, and though Miss Mapp made one forlorn attempt to thrust the horrible little clubby underneath the other cards and gather them up, the Padre pounced upon it. What hope, fair lady! he said, now completely restored! Methinks thou are force-worn. Let me have a keek at the last trick but three. Verily I was that thou didst trump ye club before time. I said so. There it is. Ah, that's Bonnie for us, partner. Miss Mapp, of course, denied it all, and a ruthless reconstruction of the tricks took place. The major, still busy with red-current fool, was the last to grasp the disaster, and then instantly deplored the unsportsman like greed of his adversaries. Well, I should have thought in a friendly game like this, he said. Of course you're within your right, Bartlett. Might as right, eh? But upon my word, a pound of flesh, you know. Can't think what made you do it, partner. You never asked me if I had any more clubs, said Miss Mapp, shrilly, giving up for the moment the contention that she had not revoked. I always ask if my partner has no more of a suit, and I always maintain that a revoke is more the partner's fault than the player's. Of course, if our adversaries claim it. Naturally we do, Mapp, said Irene. You were down on me sharp enough the other day. Miss Mapp wrinkled her face up into the sweetest and extremest smile of which her mobile features were capable. Darling, you won't mind my telling you that just at this moment you are being dummy, she said, and so you mustn't speak a single word. Otherwise there is no revoke, even if there was at all which I consider far from proved yet. There was no further proof possible beyond the clear and final evidence of the cards, and since everybody, including Miss Mapp herself, was perfectly aware that she had revoked, their opponents merely marked up the penalty and the game proceeded. Miss Mapp, of course, following the rule of correct behavior after revoking, stiffened into a state of offended dignity, and was extremely polite and distant with partner and adversaries alike. This demeanor became even more majestic when, in the next hand, the Major led out of turn. The moment he had done it, Miss Mapp hurriedly threw a random card out of her hand on the table in the hope that Irene, by some strange aberration, would think she had led first. Wait a second, she said. I call a lead. Give me a trump, please. Suddenly the awful expression as of some outraged empress faded from Miss Mapp's face, and she gave a little shriek of laughter which sounded like a squeaking slate pencil. Haven't got one, dear, she said. Now may I have your permission to lead what I think best? Thank you. There now existed between the four players that state of violent animosity which was the usual atmosphere towards the end of a rubber. But it would have been a capital mistake to suppose that they were not all enjoying themselves immensely. Emotion is the salt of life, and here was no end of salt. Every one was overbidding his hand, and the penalty tricks were a glorious cause of attuporation, scarcely veiled between the partners who had failed to make good, and caused epidemics of condescending sympathy from the adversaries which produced a passion in the losers far keener than their fury at having lost. What made the concluding stages of this contest more exciting was that an evening breeze suddenly arising, just as a deal was ended, made the cars rise in the air like a cubby of partridges. They were recaptured, and all the hands were found to be complete, with the exception of Miss Mapp's which had a card missing. This, an ace of hearts, was discovered by the Padre, face upwards in a bed of mignonette, and he was vehement in claiming a fresh deal on the grounds that the card was exposed. Miss Mapp could not speak at all in answer to this preposterous claim. She could only smile at him and proceed to declare Trump's as if nothing had happened. The major alone failed to come up to the full measure of these enjoyments, for though all the rest of them were as angry with him as they were with each other, he remained in a most indecorous state of good humor, drinking thirstily of the red current fool, and when he was dummy, quite failing to mind whether Miss Mapp got her contract or not. Captain Puffin at the other table seemed to be behaving with the same impropriety, for the sound of his shrill falsetto laugh was as regular as his visits to the bucket of red current fool. What if there was champagne in it after all, so Miss Mapp luredly conjectured? What if this unseemly good humor was due to incipient intoxication? She took a little more of that delicious decoction herself. It was almost unanimously determined, when the two rubbers came to an end almost simultaneously, that as everything was so pleasant and agreeable there should be no fresh sorting of the players. Besides, the second table was only playing stakes of six pence a hundred, and it would be very awkward in unsettling that any one should play these moderate points in one rubber and those high ones the next. But at this point Miss Mapp's table was obliged to endure pause, for the Padre had to hurry away just before six to administer the right of baptism in the church, which was so conveniently close. The Major afforded a good deal of amusement, as soon as he was out of hearing, by hoping that he would not baptize the child the nave of hearts if it was a boy, or if a girl the queen of spades, but in order to spare the susceptibilities of Mrs. Bartlett this admirable joke was not communicated to the next table, but enjoyed privately. The author of it, however, made a note in his mind to tell it to Captain Puffin, in the hopes that it would cause him to forget his ruinous half-crown defeat at golf this morning. Quite as agreeable was the arrival of a fresh supply of red-current fool, and as this had been heralded a few minutes before by a loud pop from the Butler's Pantry, which looked on to the lawn, Miss Mapp began to waver in her belief that there was no champagne in it, particularly as it would not have suited the theory by which she accounted for the Major's unwanted good humor, and her suggestion that the pop they had all heard clearly was the opening of a bottle of stone ginger-beer was not delivered with conviction. To make sure, however, she took one more sip of the new supply, and irradiated with smiles made a great concession. I believe I was wrong, she said. There is something in it beyond yolk of egg and cream. Oh, there's Boone, he will tell us. She made a seductive face at Boone, and beckoned to him. Boone, will you think it very inquisitive of me? She asked archly. If I ask whether you have put a teeny drop of champagne into this delicious red-current fool. A bottle and a half, Miss, said Boone morosely, and half a pint of old brandy. Will you have some more, Miss? Miss Mapp curbed her indignation at this vulgar squandering of precious liquids, so characteristic of poppets. She gave a shrill little laugh. Oh, no, thank you, Boone. She said, I mustn't have any more. Delicious, though. Major Flint let Boone fill his cup while he was not looking. And we owe this to your grandmother, Miss Mapp? He asked gallantly. That's a second debt. Miss Mapp acknowledged this polite subtlety with reservation. But not the champagne in it, Major, she said. Grand Mamanap! The Major beat his thigh in ecstasy. Ha! That's a good spoonerism for Miss Isabelle's books. He said, Miss Isabelle, we've got a new— Miss Mapp was very much puzzled at the slight confusion in her speech, for her utterance was usually remarkably distinct. There might be some little joke made at her expense on the effect of Grand Mamanap's invention if this lovely spoonerism was published. But if she, who had only just tasted the red-current fool tripped in her speech, how amply were Major Flint's good nature and Captain Puffin's incessant laugh accounted for. She herself felt very good-natured, too. How pleasant it all was. Oh, naughty! she said to the Major. Pray, Hush! You're disturbing them at their rubber. And here's the Padre back again. The new rubber had only just begun. Indeed, it was lucky that they had cut their cards without any delay when Mrs. Poppet appeared on her return from her expedition to London. Miss Mapp begged her to take her hand and instantly began playing. It would really be a kindness to me, Mrs. Poppet, she said. No diamonds at all, partner? But, of course, if you won't, you've been missing such a lovely party. So much enjoyment. Suddenly she saw that Mrs. Poppet was wearing on her ample breast a small piece of ribbon with a little cross attached to it. Her entire stock of good humor vanished and she smiled her widest. We needn't ask you what took you to London, she said. Congratulations! How was the dear King? This rubber was soon over, and even as they were adding up the score, there arose a shrill outcry from the next table, where Mrs. Plastow, as usual, had made the tale of her winning six pence in excess of what everybody else considered was due to her. The sound of that was so familiar that nobody looked up or asked what was going on. Darling Diva and her bobbies, Padre, said Miss Mapp in an aside, so modest in her demands. Oh, she's stopped. Somebody has given her six pence. Not another rubber? Well, perhaps it is rather late, and I must say good night to my flowers before they close up for the night. Are these shillings mine? Fancy! Miss Mapp was seething with excitement, curiosity, and rage, as with Major Flint on one side of her and Captain Puffin on the other, she was escorted home. The excitement was due to her winnings, the rage to Mrs. Poppet's order, the curiosity to the clue she believed she had found to those inexplicable lights that burned so late in the houses of her companions. Certainly it seemed that Major Flint was trying not to step on the joints of the paving stones and succeeding very imperfectly, while Captain Puffin, on her left, was walking very unevenly on the cobbles. Even making due allowance for the difficulty of walking evenly there at any time, Miss Mapp could not help thinking that a teetotaler would have made a better job of it than that. Both gentlemen talked at once, very agreeably but very carefully, Major Flint promising himself a studious evening over some very interesting entries in his Indian diary, while Captain Puffin anticipated the speedy solution of that problem about the Roman road which had puzzled him so long. As they said their auroirs to her on the doorstep, they took off their hats more often than politeness really demanded. Once in her house Miss Mapp postponed her good-nights to her sweet flowers and hurried with the utmost speed of which she was capable to her garden room in order to see what her companions were doing. They were standing in the middle of the street, and Major Flint, with gesticulating forefinger, was being very impressive over something. Interesting as was Miss Mapp's walk home, and painful as was the light which it had conceivably thrown on the problem that had baffled her for so long, she might have been more acutely disgusted had she lingered on with the rest of the bridge party in Mrs. Puppet's garden. So revolting was the sycophantic loyalty of the newly decorated member of the British Empire. She described minutely her arrival at the palace, her momentary nervousness as she entered the throne room, the instantaneousness with which all that vanished when she came face to face with her sovereign. I assure you he gave the most gracious smile, said she, just as if we had known each other all our lives, and I felt at home at once. And he said a few words to me, such a beautiful voice he has. Dear Isabelle, I wish you had been there to hear it, and then— Oh, mamma, what did he say? asked Isabelle to the great relief of Mrs. Plastow and the Bartlets, for while they were bursting with eagerness to know, with the utmost detail all that had taken place, the correct attitude in tilling was profound indifference to anybody of whatever degree who did not live at tilling, and to anything that did not happen there. In particular, any manifestation of interest in kings or other distinguished people was held to be a very miserable failing. So they all pretended to look about them and take no notice of what Mrs. Poppet was saying, and you might have heard a pin drop. Diva silently and hastily unwound her cloud from over her ears, risking catching cold in the hole where her tooth had been, so terrified was she of missing a single syllable. Well, it was very gratifying, said Mrs. Poppet, he whispered to some gentleman standing near him, who I think was the Lord Chamberlain, and then told me how interested he had been in the good work of the tilling hospital, and how especially glad he was to be able—and just then he began to pin my order on—to be able to recognize it. Now I call that wonderful to know all about the tilling hospital, and such neat, quick fingers he has, I am sure it would take me double the time to make a safety pin-hold, and then he gave me another smile, and passed me on, so to speak, to the queen, who stood next to him, and who had been listening to all he had said. And did she speak to you too, asked Diva, quite unable to maintain the right indifference? Indeed she did. She said, so pleased, and what she put into those words I am sure I can never convey to you. I hear how sincere they were. It was no set form of words, as if she meant nothing by it. She was pleased. She was just as interested in what I had done for the tilling hospital as the king was. And the crowds outside, they lined them all for at least fifty yards. I was bowing and smiling on this side, and that till I felt quite dizzy. And was the Prince of Wales there, asked Diva, beginning to wind her head up again? She did not care about the crowds. No, he wasn't there, said Mrs. Poppet, determined to have no embroidery in her story, however much other people, especially Mismap, decorated remarkable incidents until you hardly recognized them. He wasn't there. I daresay something had unexpectedly detained him, though I shouldn't wonder if before long we all saw him. For I noticed in the evening paper, which I was reading on the way down here, after I had seen the king, that he was going to stay with Lord Artingly for this very next weekend. And what's the station for Artingly Park if it isn't tilling? Though it's quite a private visit, I feel convinced that the right and proper thing for me to do is to be at the station, or at any rate, just outside with my order on. I shall not claim acquaintance with him or anything of that kind, said Mrs. Poppet, fingering her order, but after my reception to-day at the palace nothing can be more likely than that his majesty might mention, quite casually, of course, to the prince that he had just given a decoration to Mrs. Poppet of tilling, and it would make me feel very awkward to think that had happened, and I was not somewhere about to make my curtsy. Oh, mamma, may I stand by you or behind you? asked Isabelle, completely dazzled by the splendor of this prospect and prancing about the lawn. This was quite awful. It was as bad as, if not worse than, the historically disastrous remark about super tax and a general rigidity, as if of some partial, cataleptic seizure, froze Mrs. Poppet's guests, rendering them, like incomplete Marconi installations, capable of receiving but not of transmitting. They received these embrutions, but they also continued mechanically, to receive more chocolates and sandwiches, and such refreshments as remained on the buffet, but no one could intervene and stop Mrs. Poppet from exposing herself further. One reason for this, of course, as already indicated, was that they all longed for her to expose herself as much as she possibly could, for if there was equality, and indeed there were many, on which tilling prided itself, it was its immunity from snobbishness. There were, no doubt, in the great world with which tilling concerned itself so little, kings and queens and dukes and members of the Order of the British Empire, but every tilling guide knew that he or she, particularly she, was just as good as any of them, and indeed better, being more fortunate than they in living in tilling. And if there was a process in the world which tilling detested, it was being patronized, and there was this woman telling them all what she felt it right and proper for her, as Mrs. Poppet of tilling, M-B-E, to do, when the heir apparent should pass through the town on Saturday. The rest of them, Mrs. Poppet implied, might do what they liked, for they did not matter. But she must put on her order and make her curtsy. And Isabel, by her expressed desire to stand beside or even behind her mother for this degrading moment, had shown of what stalk she came. End of Chapter 2 Part 2 Chapter 2 Part 3 of Mismap This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Mismap by E. F. Benson Chapter 2 Part 3 Mrs. Poppet had nothing more to say on this subject. Indeed, as Diva reflected, there was really nothing more that could be said, unless she suggested that they should all bow and curtsy to her for the future, and their hostess proceeded, as they all took their leave, to hope that they had enjoyed the bridge-party which she had been unavoidably prevented from attending. But my absence made it possible to include Mismap, she said. I should not have liked poor Mismap to feel left out. I am always glad to give Mismap pleasure. I hope she won her rubber. She does not like losing. Will no one have a little more red current fool? Boone has made it very tolerably to-day. A scotch recipe of my great-grandmothers. Diva gave a little cackle of laughter as she enfolded herself in her cloud again. She had heard Mismap's ironical inquiry as to how the dear king was, and had thought at the time that it was probably a pity that Mismap had said that. Though a point of snobbery and immunity from any taint of it was so fine a characteristic of public social life at Tilling, the expected passage of this distinguished visitor through the town on Saturday next became very speedily known, and before the wicker baskets of the ladies in their morning marketing next day were half-full, there was no quarter which the news had failed to reach. Major Flint had it from Mrs. Plastow as he went down to the eleven-twenty tram out to the golf-lings, and though he had not much time to spare, for his work last night on his old diaries had caused him to breakfast unusually late that morning, to the accompaniment of a dismal headache from over application. He had stopped to converse with Mismap immediately afterwards, with one eye on the time, for naturally he could not fire off that sort of news point-blanket her as if it was a matter of any interest or importance. Good morning, dear lady, he said. By Job! What a picture of health and freshness you are! Mismap cast one glance at her basket to see that the paper quite concealed that article of clothing which the perfidious laundry had found. Probably the laundry knew where it was all the time, and in a figurative sense, of course, was trying it on. Early to bed and early to rise, Major, she said. I saw my sweet flowers open their eyes this morning. Such a beautiful dew! Well, my diaries kept me up late last night, he said. When all you fascinating ladies have withdrawn is the only time at which I can bring myself to sit down to them. Let me recommend six to eight in the morning, Major, said Mismap earnestly. Such a freshness of brain, then! That seemed to be a cul-de-sac in the way of leading up to the important subject, and the Major tried another turning. Good, well-fought game of bridge we had yesterday, he said. Just met Mrs. Plastow. She stopped on for a chat after we had gone. Dear Diva, she loves a good gossip, said Mismap effusively. Such an interest she has in other people's affairs. So human and sympathetic. I'm sure our dear hostess told her all about her adventures at the palace. There was only seven minutes left before the tram started, and though this was not a perfect opening, it would have to do. Besides, the Major saw Mrs. Plastow coming energetically along the high street with hurling feet. Yes, and we haven't finished with—ha! Royalty, yet, he said, getting the odious word out with difficulty. The Prince of Wales— The Prince of Wales will be passing through the town on Saturday on his way to Ardingley Park, where he is spending the Sunday. Mismap was not betrayed into the smallest expression of interest. That will be nice for him, he said. He will catch a glimpse of our beautiful tilling. So he will. Well, I'm off for my game of golf. Perhaps the Navy will be a bit more efficient today. I'm sure you will both play perfectly, said Mismap. Diva had popped into the grocers. She always popped everywhere just now. She popped across to see a friend, and she popped home again. She popped into church on Sunday, and occasionally popped up to town, and Mismap was beginning to feel that somebody ought to let her know, directly or by insinuation, that she popped too much. So, thinking that an opportunity might present itself now, Mismap read the news board outside the stationers till Diva popped out of the grocers again. The headline of news, even the largest of them, hardly reached her brain, because it was entirely absorbed in another subject. Of course, the first thing was to find out by what train. Diva trundled swiftly across the street. Good morning, Elizabeth, she said. You left the party too early yesterday. Missed a lot. How the king smiled. How the queen said, so pleased. Our dear hostess would like that, said Mismap, pensively. She would be so pleased, too. She and the queen would both be pleased. Quite a pair of them. By the way, on Saturday next, began Diva. I know, dear, said Mismap. Major Flint told me. It seemed quite to interest him. Now, I must pop into the stationers. Diva was really very obtuse. I'm popping in there, too, she said. Want a timetable of trains. Wild horses would not have dragged from Mismap that this was precisely what she wanted. I only wanted a little ruled paper, she said. Why, here's dear Evie, popping out just as we pop in. Good morning, sweet Evie. Lovely day again. Mrs. Bartlett thrust something into her basket which very much resembled a railway timetable. She spoke in a low, quick voice, as if afraid of being overheard, and was otherwise rather like a mouse. When she was excited, she squeaked. So good for the harvest, she said. Such an important thing to have a good harvest. I hope next Saturday will be fine. It would be a pity if he had a wet day. We were wondering, Kenneth and I, what would be the proper thing to do, if he came over for service. Oh, here is Kenneth. She stopped abruptly, as if afraid that she had betrayed too much interest in next Saturday and Sunday. Kenneth would manage it much better. Ha, fair lady, he exclaimed, having a bit of crack with wee wifey. Any news this bright morning? No, dear Padre, said Mismap, showing her gums. At least I've heard nothing of any interest. I can only give you the news of my garden. Such lovely new roses in bloom today, bless them. Mrs. Plastow had popped into the stationers, so this perjury was undetected. The Padre was noted for his diplomacy. Just now he wanted to convey the impression that nothing which could happen next Saturday or Sunday could be of the smallest interest to him, whereas he had spent an almost sleepless night in wondering whether it would, in certain circumstances, be proper to make a bow at the beginning of his sermon and another at the end, whether he ought to meet the visitor at the west door, whether the mayor ought to be told and whether there ought to be special psalms. Well, fair lady, he said, gossip will have it that you Prince of Wales is staying in Ardenley for the Sunday. Indeed, he will, I suppose, pass their tilling on Saturday afternoon. Mismap put her forefinger to her forehead as if trying to recollect something. Yes, now somebody did tell me, she said, Major Flint, I believe. But when you asked for news I thought you meant something that really interested me. Yes, Padre. Well, if he comes to service on Sunday... Dear Padre, I'm sure you hear a very good sermon. Oh, I see what you mean, whether you ought to have any special hymn. Don't ask poor little me. Mrs. Poppet, I'm sure, would tell you she knows all about courts and etiquette. Deva popped out of the stationers at this moment. Sold out, she announced. Everybody wanted timetables this morning. Evie got the last. Have to go to the station. I'll walk with you, Deva. Dear, said Mismap. There's a parcel that... Good-bye, dear Evie. Oh, reservoir! She kissed her hand to Mrs. Bartlett, leaving a smile behind it as it fluttered away from her face for the Padre. Mismap was so impenetrable wrapped in thought as she worked among her sweet flowers that afternoon that she merely stared at a love and a mist, which she had absently rooted up instead of a piece of ground-soul without any bleeding of the heart for one of her sweet flowers. There were two trains by which she might arrive, one at four-fifteen, which would get him to Artingly for tea, the other at six-forty-five. She was quite determined to see him, but more inflexible than that resolve was the Euclidean postulate that no one in Tilling should think that she had taken any deliberate step to do so. For the present she had disarmed suspicion by the blankness of her indifference as to what might happen on Saturday or Sunday, but she herself strongly suspected that everybody else, in spite of the public attitude of Tilling to such subjects, was determined to see him too. How to see and not be seen was the question which engrossed her, and though she might possibly happen to be at that sharp corner outside the station, where every motor had to go slow, on the arrival of the four-fifteen, it would never do to risk being seen there again precisely at six-forty-five. Mrs. Poppet, shameless in her snobbery, would no doubt be at the station with her order on at both these hours, if the arrival did not take place by the first train, and Isabel would be prancing by or behind her, and in fact, dreadful though it was to contemplate, all Tilling, she reluctantly believed, would be hanging about. Then an idea struck her, so glorious that she put the uprooted love in a mist in the weed-basket instead of planting it again, and went quickly indoors, up to the attics, and from there popped, really popped, so tight was the fit, through a trapped door onto the roof. Yes, the station was plainly visible, and if the four-fifteen was the favored train, there would certainly be a motor from Artingley Park waiting there in good time for its arrival. From the house-roof she could ascertain that, and she would then have time to trip down the hill and get to her coal merchants at that sharp corner outside the station, and ask, rather peremptorily, when the cope for her central heating might be expected. It was due now, and though it would be unfortunate if it arrived before Saturday, it was quite easy to smile away her peremptory manner, and say that withers had not told her. Mismap hated prevarication, but a major force sometimes came along. But if no motors from Artingley Park were in waiting for the four-fifteen, as spied from her house-roof, she need not risk being seen in the neighborhood of the station, but would again make observations some few minutes before the six-forty-five was due. There was positively no other train by which he could come. The next day or two saw no traceable developments in the situation, but Mismap's trained sense told her that there was an underground work of some kind going on. She seemed to hear faint hollow taps and muffled knockings, and, so to speak, the silence of some unusual pregnancy. Up and down the high street she observed short, whispered conversations going on between her friends, which broke off on her approach. This only confirmed her view that these secret colloquies were connected with Saturday afternoon, for it was not to be expected that, after her freezing reception of the news, any projected snobbery should be confided to her, and though she would have liked to know what Diva and Irene and Darling Evie were meaning to do, the fact that they none of them told her showed that they were aware that she, at any rate, was utterly indifferent to and above that sort of thing. She suspected, too, that Major Flint had fallen victim to this untilling like mania, for on Friday afternoon, when passing his door, which happened to be standing open, she quite distinctly saw him in front of his glass in the hall, standing on the head of one of the tigers to secure a better view of himself, trying on a silk top hat. Her own errand at this moment was to the drapers, where she bought a quantity of pretty pale blue braid for a domestic dressmaking which was in arrears and some ribbon of the same tint. At this clever and unusual hour for shopping, the high street was naturally empty, and after a little hesitation and many anxious glances to right and left, she plunged into the toy shop and bought a pleasant little union jack with a short stick attached to it. She told Mr. Dabnett, very distinctly, that it was a present for her nephew, and concealed it inside her parasol, where it lay quite flat and made no perceptible bulge. At four o'clock on Saturday afternoon she remembered that the damp had come in through her bedroom ceiling in a storm last winter, and told withers she was going to have a look to see if any tiles were loose. In order to ascertain this for certain, she took up through the trap door a pair of binocular glasses, through which it was also easy to identify anybody who might be in the open yard outside the station. Even as she looked, Mrs. Poppet and Isabelle crossed the yard into the waiting room and ticket office. It was a little surprising that there were not more friends in the station yard, but at the moment she heard a loud quee-high in the street below, and cautiously peering over the parapet she got an admirable view of the major in a frock coat and a tall hat. A coupie answered him, and Captain Puffin, in a new suit, mismapped with certain of it, and a Panama hat, joined him. They went down the high street and turned the corner. Across the opening to the high street there shot the figure of Darling Diva. While waiting for them to appear again in the station yard, mismap looked to see what vehicles were standing there. It was already ten minutes past four, and the artingly motors must have been there by this time, if there was anything doing by the four fifteen. But positively the only vehicle there was was an open trolley laden with a piano and a sack. Apart from knowing all about that piano, for Mrs. Poppet had talked about little else than her new upright Bluthner before her visit to Buckingham Palace, a moment's reflection convinced mismap that this was a very unlikely mode of conveyance for any guest. She watched for few moments more, but as no other friends appeared in the station yard, she concluded that they were hanging about the street somewhere, poor things, and decided not to make inquiries about her cope just yet. She had tea while she arranged flowers in the very front of the window in her garden room, and presently had the satisfaction of seeing many of the baffled loyalists trudging home. There was no need to do more than smile and tap the window and kiss her hand. They all knew that she had been busy with flowers, and that she knew what they had been busy about. Out again they all came towards half-past six, and when she had watched the last of them down the hill, she hurried back to the roof again to make a final inspection of the loose tiles through her binoculars. Brief but exciting was the inspection, for opposite the entrance to the station was drawn up a motor. So clear was the air and so serviceable her binoculars that she could distinguish the vulgar cornet on the panels, and as she looked Mrs. Poppet and Isabelle hurried across the station yard. It was then, but the work of a moment to slip on the dust cloak trimmed with blue braid, adjust the hat with the blue ribbon, and take up the parasol with its furrowed union jack inside it. The stick of the flag was uppermost, she could whip it out in a moment. Miss Mapp had calculated her appearance to a nicety. Just as she got to the sharp corner opposite the station, where all cars slowed down and her coal-merchance office was situated, the train drew up. By the gates into the yard were standing the major in his top hat, the captain in his Panama, Irene in a civilized skirt, Diva in a brand new walking-dress, and the Padre in Wee Wifey. They were all looking in the direction of the station, and Miss Mapp stepped into the coal-merchance unobserved. Oddly enough the coke had been sent three days before, and there was no need for a peremptoriness. So good of you, Mr. Wooten, she said, and why is everyone standing about this afternoon? Mr. Wooten explained the reason of this, and Miss Mapp, grasping her parasol, went out again as the car left the station. There were too many dear friends about, she decided, to use the Union Jack, and having seen what she wanted to, she determined to slip quietly away again. Already the major's hat was in his hand, and he was bowing low. So too were Captain Puffin and the Padre, while Irene, Diva, and Evie were making little ducking movements. Miss Mapp was determined, when it came to her turn, to show them, as she happened to be on the spot, what a proper curtsy was. The car came opposite her, and she curtsied so low that recovery was impossible, and she sat down in the road. Her parasol flew out of her hand, and out of her parasol flew the Union Jack. She saw a young man looking out of the window, dressing khaki, grinning broadly, but not, so she thought, graciously, and it suddenly struck her that there was something, beside her own part in the affair, which was not as it should be. As he put his head in again there was a loud laughter from inside of the car. Mr. Wooten helped her up, and the entire assembly of her friends crowded round her, hoping she was not hurt. No, dear Major, dear Padre, not at all, thanks, she said. So stupid, my ankle turned. Oh yes, the Union Jack, I bought it for my nephew, it's his birthday to-morrow. Thank you, I just came to see about my coke. Of course I thought the Prince had arrived when you all went down to meet the 4.15. Fancy, my running straight into it all. How well he looked! This was all rather lame, and Miss Mapp hailed Mrs. Poppet's appearance from the station as a welcome diversion. Mrs. Poppet was looking vexed. I hope you saw him well, Mrs. Poppet, said Miss Mapp, after meeting two trains and taking all that trouble. Saw who, said Mrs. Poppet, with a deplorable lack both of Manor and Grammar. Why, light seemed to break on her odious countenance. Why, you don't think that was the Prince, do you, Miss Mapp? He arrived here at one, so the station master has just told me, and has been playing golf all afternoon. The Major looked at the Captain and the Captain at the Major. It was months and months since they had missed their Saturday afternoon's golf. It was the Prince of Wales who looked out of that car window, said Miss Mapp firmly. Such a pleasant smile. I should know it anywhere. The young man who got into the car at the station was no more the Prince of Wales than you are, said Mrs. Poppet shrilly. I was close to him as he came out. I curtsied to him before I saw. Miss Mapp instantly changed her attack. She could hardly hold her smile on her face for rage. How very awkward for you, she said. What a laugh they will all have over it this evening. Delicious! Mrs. Poppet's face suddenly took on an expression of the tendress's solicitude. I hope, Miss Mapp, you didn't jar yourself when you sat down in the road just now, she said. Not at all, thank you so much, said Miss Mapp, hearing her heart beat in her throat. If she had a navel fifteen-inch gun-handy and had known how to fire it, she would, with a sense of duty accomplished, have discharged it point-blank at the member of the Order of the British Empire and at anybody else who might be within range. Sunday, of course, with all the opportunities of that day still remained, and the seats of the auxiliary choir, which were so advantageously situated, had never been so full. But as it was all to no use, the Major and Captain Puffin left during the sermon to catch the twelve-twenty tram out to the links. On this delightful day it was but very natural that the pleasant walk there across the marsh was very popular, and golfers that afternoon had a very trying and nervous time, for the ladies of tilling kept bobbing up from behind sand dunes and bunkers, as regardless of the players they executed swift flank marches in all directions. Miss Mapp returned exhausted about tea-time to hear from withers that the Prince had spent an hour or more rambling about the town, and had stopped quite five minutes at the corner by the garden-room. He had actually sat down on Miss Mapp's steps and smoked a cigarette. She wondered if the end of the cigarette was there still. It was hateful to have cigarette ends defiling the steps to her front door, and often, before now, when sketches were numerous, she had sent her housemaid out to remove these untidy relics. She searched for it, but was obliged to come to the reluctant conclusion that there was nothing to remove. End of Chapter 2