 CHAPTER VIII. PART I. The hippopotamus quarrel over there whiskey between Major Flint and Captain Puffin, which culminated in the challenge and all the shining sequel, had had the excellent effect of making the United Services more united than ever. They both knew that, had they not severally run away from the encounter, and so providentially, met at the station, very serious consequences might have ensued. Had not both but only one of them been averse from taking or risking life? The other would surely have remained entilling, and spread disastrous reports about the bravery of the refugee. While if neither of them had had scruples on the sacredness of human existence, there might have been one, if not two, corpses lying on the shining sands. Naturally the fact that they both had taken the very earliest opportunity of averting an encounter by flight made it improbable that any future quarrel would be preceded with to violent extremes. But it was much safer to run no risks and not let verbal disagreements rise to hippopotamus pitch again. Consequently, when there was any real danger of such savagery as was implied in sending challenges, they hastened by mutual concessions to climb down from these perilous places where loss of balance might possibly occur. For which of them could be absolutely certain that next time the other of them might not be more courageous? They were coming up from the tram station one November evening, both fizzing and fuming a good deal, and the major was extremely lame, lame-er than Puffin. The rattle of the tram had made argument impossible during the transit from the links. But they had both in this enforced silence thought of several smart repartets, supposing that the other made the requisite remarks to call them out, and on arrival at the tilling station they went on at precisely the same point at which they had broken off on starting from the station by the links. Well, I hope I can take a beating in as English a spirit as anybody, said the major. This was lucky for Captain Puffin. He had thought it likely that he would say just that and had gotten a stinger for him. And it worries you to find that your hopes are doomed to disappointment, he swiftly said. Major Flint stepped in a puddle which cooled his foot, but not his temper. Most offensive remark, he said. I wasn't called sporting Benji in the regiment for nothing, but never mind that. A worm cast. It wasn't a worm cast, said Puffin. It was sheep's dung. Luck had veered here. The major had felt sure that Puffin would reiterate that utterly untrue contention. I can't pretend to be such a specialist as you in those matters, he said. But you must allow me sufficient power of observation to know a worm cast when I see it. It was a worm cast, sir. A cast of a worm. And you had no right to remove it. If you will do me the favor to consult the rules of golf. Oh, I grant that you are more a specialist in the rules of golf, Major, than in the practice of it, said Puffin brightly. Suddenly it struck sporting Benji that the red signals of danger danced before his eyes, and though the odious Puffin had scored twice to his once, he called up all his powers of self-control. For if his friend was anything like as exasperated as himself, the breeze of disagreement might develop into a hurricane. At the moment he was passing through a swing-gate which led to a shortcut back to the town. But before he could take hold of himself, he had slammed it back in his fury, hitting Puffin, who was following him, on the knee. Then he remembered he was a sporting Christian gentleman and no duelist. I'm sure I beg your pardon, my dear fellow, he said with the utmost solicitude. Uncommonly stupid of me. The gate flew out of my hand. I hope I didn't hurt you. Puffin had just come to the same conclusion as Major Flint. Magnanimity was better than early trains and ever so much better than bullets. Indeed, there was no comparison. Not heard of it, thank you, Major. He said, wincing with the shrewdness of the blow, silently cursing his friend for what he felt sure was no accident, and limping with both legs. It didn't touch me. Ha! What a brilliant sunset. The town looks amazingly picturesque. It does indeed, said the Major. Fine subject for Miss Mapp. Puffin shuffled alongside. There's still a lot of talk going on in the town, he said, about that duel of ours. Those fairies of yours are all agog to know what it was about. I'm sure they all think that there was a lady in the case, just like the vanity of the sex. If two men have a quarrel, they think it must be because of their silly faces. Ordinarily the Major's gallantry would have resented this view, but the reconciliation with Puffin was too recent to risk just at present. Poor little devils, he said. It makes an excitement for them. I wonder who they think it is. It would puzzle me to name a woman in tilling worth catching an early train for. There are several who'd be surprised to hear you say that, Major, said Puffin archly. Well, well, said the other, strutting and swelling and walking without a sign of lameness. They had come to where their houses stood opposite each other on the steep cobbled street, fronted at its top end by Miss Mapp's garden room. She happened to be standing in the window, and the Major made a great flourish of his cap and laid his hand on his heart. And there is one of them, said Puffin, as Miss Mapp acknowledged these florid salutations with a wave of her hand, and tripped away from the window. Poking your fun at me, said the Major, perhaps she was the cause of our quarrel, hey? Well, I'll step across, shall I, about half past nine and bring my diaries with me. I'll expect you, you'll find me at my Roman roads. The humor of this joke never stalled, and they parted with hoots and guffaws of laughter. It must not be supposed that dueling, puzzles over the portmanteau or the machinations of Susan, had put out of Miss Mapp's head her amiable interest in the hour at which Major Benji went to bed. For some time she had been content to believe, on direct information from him, that he went to bed early and worked at his diaries on alternate evenings. But mature consideration had led her to wonder whether he was being quite as truthful as a gallant soldier should be. For though, on alternate evenings, his house would be quite dark by half past nine, it was not for twelve hours or more afterwards that he could be heard kehing for his breakfast. And unless he was in some incipient stage of sleeping sickness, such hours provided more than ample slumber for a growing child, and might be considered excessive for a middle age man. She had a mass of evidence to show that on the other set of alternate nights his diaries, which must, in parenthesis, be of extraordinary fullness, occupied him into the small hours, and to go to bed at half past nine on one night and after one o'clock on the next implied a complicated kind of regularity which cried aloud for lucidation. If he had only breakfasted early on the mornings after he had gone to bed early, she might have allowed herself to be weakly credulous. But he never key-heed earlier than half past nine, and she could not but think that to believe blindly in such habits would be a triumph not for faith, but for foolishness. People, said Miss Mapp to herself, as her attention refused to concentrate on the evening paper. Don't do it. I never heard of a similar case. She had been spending the evening alone, and even the conviction that her cold apple-tart had suffered diminution by at least a slice, since she had so much enjoyed it hot at lunch, failed to occupy her mind for long. For this matter had presented itself with a clamoring insistence that drowned all other voices. She had tried, when at the conclusion of her supper, she had gone back to the garden room to immerse herself in a book, in an evening paper, in the Port Banteau problem, in a jigsaw puzzle, and in patience. But none of these supplied the stimulus to lead her mind away from Major Benji's evenings, or the narcotic to dull her unslumbering desire to solve a problem that was rapidly becoming one of the greater mysteries. Her radiator made a seat in the window, agreeably warm, and a chink in the curtains gave her a view of the Major's lighted window. Even as she looked, the illumination was extinguished. She had expected this, as he had been at his diaries late, quite nautily late, the evening before. So this would be a night of infant slumber for twelve hours or so. Even as she looked, a chink of light came from his front door, which immediately enlarged itself into a full oblong. Then it went completely out. He has opened the door, and has put out the whole light, whispered Miss Mapp to herself. He has gone out and shut the door. Perhaps he is going to post a letter. He has gone into Captain Puffin's house without knocking. So he is expected. Miss Mapp did not at once guess that she held in her hand the key to the mystery. It was certainly Major Benji's night for going to bed early. Then a fierce illumination beat on her brain. Had she not, so providentially, actually observed the Major cross the road, unmistakable in the lamp light, and had she only looked out of her window after the light in his was quenched, she would surely have told herself that Good Major Benji had gone to bed. But Good Major Benji, on ocular evidence, she now knew to have done nothing of the kind. He had gone across to see Captain Puffin. He was not good. She grasped the situation in its hideous entirety. She had been deceived and hoodwinked. Major Benji never went to bed early at all. On alternate nights he went and sat with Captain Puffin. And Captain Puffin, she could not but tell herself, sat up on the other set of alternate nights with the Major. For it had not escaped her observation that when the Major seemed to be sitting up, the Captain seemed to have gone to bed. Instantly, with strong conviction, she suspected orgies. It remained to be seen, and she would remain to see it, to what hour these orgies were kept up. About eleven o'clock a little mist had begun to form in the street, obscuring the complete clarity of her view. But through it there still shone the light from behind Captain Puffin's red blind. And the mist was not so thick as to be able wholly to obscure the figure of Major Flint when he should pass below the gas lamp again into his house. But no such figure. Did he then work at his diaries every evening? And what price, to put it vulgarly, Roman Rhodes? Every moment her sense of being deceived grew blacker, and every moment her curiosity as to what they were doing became more unbearable. After a spasm of tactical thought, she glided back into her house from the garden room, and taking an envelope in her hand so that she might, if detected, say that she was going down to the letterbox at the corner to catch the early post, she unbolted her door and let herself out. She crossed the street and tiptoed along the pavement to wear the red light from Captain Puffin's window shone like a blurred danger signal through the mist. From inside came a loud duet of familiar voices. Sometimes they spoke singly, sometimes together. But she could not catch the words. They sounded blurred and indistinct, and she told herself that she was very glad that she could not hear what they said, for that would have seemed like eavesdropping. The voices sounded angry. Was there another dual pending? And what was it about this time? Quite suddenly, from so close at hand that she positively leaped off the pavement into the middle of the road, the door was thrown open and the duet, louder than ever, streamed out into the street. Major Benji bounced out onto the threshold and stumbled down the two steps that led from the door. Tell you it was a worm cast, he bellowed. Think I don't know a worm cast when I see a worm cast? Suddenly his tone changed. This was getting too near a quarrel. Well, good night, old fellow, he said. Jolly evening. He turned and saw, veiled and indistinct in the mist, the female figure in the roadway. Undying coquetry, as Mr. Stevenson so finely remarked, awoke, for the topic preceding the worm cast had been the sex. Bless me, he crowed, if there isn't an unprotected lady all lone here in the dark and lost in the fog. Allow me to escort you home, madam. Let me introduce myself and friend. Major Flint, that's me, and my friend, Captain Puffin. He put up his hand and whispered an aside to mismap. Revolutionized the theory of navigation. Major Benji was certainly rather gay and rather indistinct, but his polite gallantry could not fail to be attractive. It was naughty of him to have said that he went to bed early on alternate nights, but really. Still, it might be better to slip away unrecognized, and thinking it would be nice to scriggle by him and disappear in the mist, she made a tactical error in her scrigling, for she scriggled full into the light that streamed from the open door where Captain Puffin was standing. He gave a shrill laugh. Why, it's mismap, he said in his high falsetto. Blow me if it isn't our mutual friend, mismap. What a straudinary coincidence. Mismap put on her most winning smile. To be dignified and at the same time pleasant was the proper way to deal with this situation. Gentlemen often had a glass of grog when they thought the ladies had gone upstairs. That was how for the moment she summed things up. Good evening, she said. I was just going down to the pillar box to post a letter. And she exhibited her envelope. But it dropped out of her hand and the Major picked it up for her. I'll post it for you, he said very pleasantly. Save you the trouble, insist on it. Why, there's no stamp on it. Why, there's no address on it. I say, Puffy, here's a letter with no address on it. Forgotten the address, Mismap? Think they'll remember it at the post office? Well, that's one of the most comic things I ever came across. And an anonymous letter, hey? The night air began to have a most unfortunate effect on Puffin. When he came out it would have been quite unfair to have described him as drunk. He was no more than gay and ready to go to bed. Now he became portentously solemn, as the cold mist began to do its deadly work. A letter, he said impressively, without an address is an uncommonly dangerous thing. It can't tell into whose hands it may fall. I would sooner go about with a loaded pistol than with a letter without any address. Send it to the bank for safety. Send for the police. Follow my advice and send for the police. Police! Mismap's penetrating mind instantly perceived that that dreadful Captain Puffin was drunk, and she promised herself that tilling should ring with the tale of his excesses tomorrow. But Major Benji, whom if she mistook not, Captain Puffin had been trying, with perhaps some small success to lead astray, was a gallant gentleman still, and she conceived the brilliant but madly mistaken idea of throwing herself on his protection. Major Benji, she said, I will ask you to take me home. Captain Puffin has had too much to drink. What's that? asked Captain Puffin with an air of great interest. Mismap abandoned dignity and pleasantness and lost her temper. I said you were drunk, she said with great distinctness. Major Benji, will you? Captain Puffin came carefully down the two steps from the door onto the pavement. Look here, he said. This all needs explanation. You say I'm drunk, do you? Well, I say you're drunk going out like this in the middle of the night to post letter with no dress on it. Shamed of yourself, middle-aged woman going out in the middle of the night in the middle of tilling. Very shocking thing. What do you say, Major? Major Benji drew himself up to his full height and put on his hat in order to take it off to Mismap. My friend Captain Puffin, he said, is a man of strictly steamy as habits. Boys together, very serious thing to call a man of my friend's character drunk. If you call him drunk, why shouldn't he call you drunk? Can't take away a man's character like that. Abs... began Captain Puffin. Then he stopped and pulled himself together. Absolutely, he said without a hitch. Telling shall hear of this tomorrow, said Mismap, shivering with rage and seamst. Captain Puffin came a step closer. Now tell you what it is, Mismap, he said. If you dare to say that I was drunk, Major and I, my friend the Major and I, will say you were drunk. Perhaps you think my friend the Major is drunk too. But sure as I live, I'll say we were taking little walk in the moonlight and found you trying to post a letter with no dress on it and couldn't find the slit to put it in. But so long as you say nothing, I say nothing. Can't say fairer than that. Liberal terms. Mutual protection society. Your lips sealed, our lips sealed. Strictly private. All trespassers will be prosecuted by order. Here you go. Mismap felt that Major Benji ought instantly to have challenged his ignoble friend to another duel for his insolent suggestion. But he did nothing of the kind and his silence, which had some awful quality of consent about it, chilled her mind, even as they seemest, now thick and cold, made her certain that her nose was turning red. She still boiled with rage, but her mind grew cold with odious apprehensions. She was like an ice-putting with scalding sauce. There they all stood, veiled in vapours, and outlined by the red light that streamed from the still-opened door of the intoxicated puffin, getting colder every moment. Yes or no, said puffin, with his chattering teeth. Bitter as it was to accept those outrageous terms, they are really seemed, without the Major's support, to be no way out of it. Yes, said Mismap. Puffin gave a loud crow. The eyes have it, Major, he said. So we're all friends again. Good night, everybody. End of Chapter 8 Part 1. Recording by Rhonda Fetterman. Chapter 8 Part 2 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. Recording by Rhonda Fetterman. Mismap by E. F. Benson. Chapter 8 Part 2. Mismap led herself into her house in an agony of mortification. She could scarcely realize that her little expedition, undertaken with so much ardent and earnest curiosity only a quarter of an hour ago, had ended in so deplorable a surfeit of sensation. She had gone out in obedience to an innocent and indeed laudable desire to assertant how Major Benji spent those evenings on which he had deceived her into imagining that owing to her influence he had gone ever so early to bed, only to find that he sat up ever so late and that she was fettered by a promise not to breathe to a soul a single word about the depravity of Captain Puffin, on pain of being herself accused out of the mouth of two witnesses of being equally depraved herself. More wounding yet was the part played by her Major Benji in these odious transactions, and it was only possible to conclude that he put a higher value on his fellowship with his degraded friend than on chivalry itself. And what did his silence imply? Probably it was a defensive one. He imagined that he too would be included in the stories that Mismap proposed to sow, broadcast upon the fruitful fields of tilling, and indeed when she called to mind his bellowing about worm-casts, his general instability of speech and equilibrium, she told herself that he had ample cause for such a supposition. He, when his lights were out, was abetting, assisting, and perhaps joining Captain Puffin. When his window was a light on alternate nights, she made no doubt now that Captain Puffin was performing a similar role. This had been going on for weeks under her very nose, without her having the smallest suspicion of it. Humiliated by all that had happened, and flattened in her own estimation by the sense of her blindness, she penetrated to the kitchen and lit a gas ring to make herself some hot cocoa, which would at least comfort her physical chatterings. There was a letter for withers slipped sideways into its envelope on the kitchen table, and mechanically she opened it and read it by the bluish flame of the burner. She had always suspected withers of having a young man, and here was proof of it, but that he should be Mr. Hopkins of the fish shop. There is known to medical science a pleasant device known as a counter-irritant. If the patient has an aching and rheumatic joint, he is counseled to put some hot burning application on the skin, which smarts so agonizingly that the ache is quite extinguished. Metaphorically Mr. Hopkins was thermo-gene to mismap's outraged and aching consciousness, and the smart occasion by the knowledge that withers must have encouraged Mr. Hopkins, else he could scarcely have written a letter so familiar and amorous, and thus be contemplating matrimony, relieve the aching humiliation of all that had happened in the seamest. It shed a new and lurid light on withers. It made her mistress feel that she had nourished a serpent in her bosom, to think that withers was contemplating so odious an act of selfishness as matrimony. It would be necessary to find a new parlor maid, and all the trouble connected with that would not nearly be compensated for by being able to buy fish at a lower rate. That was the least that withers could do for her, to insist that Mr. Hopkins should let her have dabs in place exceptionally cheap. And ought she tell withers that she had seen Mr. Hopkins? No, that was impossible. She must write it, if she decided, for withers' sake, to make this fell communication. Miss Mack turned and tossed on her uneasy bed, and her mind went back to the major and the captain and that fiasco in the fog. Of course she was perfectly at liberty, having made her promise under practical compulsion to tell everybody in telling what had occurred, trusting to the chivalry of the men not to carry out their counter-threat, but looking at the matter quite dispassionately. She did not think it would be wise to trust too much to chivalry. Still, even if they did carry out their unmanly menace, nobody would seriously believe that she had been drunk. But they might make a very disagreeable joke of pretending to do so. And, in a word, the prospect frightened her. Whatever tilling did or did not believe, a residuum of ridicule would assuredly cling to her, and her reputation of having perhaps been the cause of the quarrel, which so happily did not end in a duel, would be lost forever. Evie would speak, quaint Irene would certainly burst into horse laughter when she heard the story. It was very inconvenient that honesty should be the best policy. Her brain still violently active switched off for a moment onto the eternal problem of the portmanteau. Why, so she asked herself for the hundredth time, if the portmanteau contained the fatal apparatus of dueling did not the combatants accompany it? And if, the only other alternative, it did not, an idea so luminous flashed across her brain that she almost thought the room had leaped into light. The challenge distinctly said that Nader Benji's seconds would wait upon Captain Puffin in the course of the morning. With what object then could the former have gone down to the station to catch the early train? There could be but one object. Namely, to get away as quickly as possible from the dangerous vicinity of the challenged captain. And why did Captain Puffin leave that note on his table to say that he was suddenly called away, except in order to escape from the ferocious neighborhood of his challenger? The cowards ejaculated this map. They both ran away from each other. How blind I've been. The veil was rent. She perceived how carried away with the notion that a duel was to be fought among the sand dunes. Tilling had quite overlooked the significance of the early train. She felt sure that she had solved everything now, and gave herself up to a rapturous consideration of what use she would make of the precious solution. All regrets for the impossibility of ruining the character of Captain Puffin with regard to intoxicants were gone. For she had an even deadlier blacking to hand. No faintest hesitation at ruining the reputation of Major Benji as well crossed her mind. She gloried in it. For he had not only caused her to deceive herself about the early hours on alternate nights, but by his infamous willingness to back up Captain Puffin's bargain he had shown himself impervious waterproof to all chivalrous impulses. For weeks now the sorry pair of them had enjoyed the spurious splendors of being men of blood and valor, when all the time they had put themselves to all sorts of inconvenience in catching early trains and packing bags by candlelight in order to escape the hot impulses of quarrel that as she saw now would probably derive from drained whiskey bottles. That mysterious hollering about wormcast was just another disagreement. And crowning rapture of all, her own position as cause of the projected duel was quite unassailed. Owing to her silence about drink no one would suspect a mere drunken brawl she would still figure as heroine, though the heroes were terribly dismantled. To be sure it would have been better if their ardour about her had been such that one of them at the least had been prepared to face the ordeal that they had not both preferred flight, but even without that she had much to be thankful for. It will serve them both, said Miss Mapp, interrupted by a sneeze for she had been sitting up in bed for quite a considerable time. Right. To one of Miss Mapp's experience the first step of her new and delightful strategic campaign was obvious and she had spent hardly any time at all in the window of her garden-room after breakfast next morning but set out with her shopping basket at an unusually early hour. She shuddered as she passed between the front doors of her miscreant neighbours, for the chill of last night's mist and its dreadful memories still lingered there. But her present errand warmed her soul even as the tepid November day comforted her body. No sign of life was at present evident in those bibulous abodes. No kihis had indicated breakfast and she put her utmost irony into the reflection that the United Services slept late after their protracted industry last night over diaries and Roman roads. By a natural revulsion, violent in proportion to the depth of her previous regard for Major Benji, she hugged herself more closely on the prospect of exposing him than on that of exposing the other. She had had daydreams about Major Benji and the conversion of these into nightmares annealed her softness into the semblance of some red hot stone, giving vengeance a concentrated sweetness as of saccharine contrasted with ordinary lump sugar. This sweetness was so powerful a quality that she momentarily forgot all about the contents of Wither's letter on the kitchen table and tripped across to Mr. Hopkins with an oblivious smile for him. Good morning, Mr. Hopkins, she said. I wonder if you've got a nice little dab for my dinner today. Yes? Will you send it up then please? What a mild morning, like May. The opening move, of course, was to tell Diva about the revelation that had burst on her the night before. Diva was incomparably the best disseminator of news. She walked so fast, and her telegraphic style was so brisk and lucid. Her terse tongue, her revolving feet, such a gossip. Diva, darling, I had to look in a moment, said Elizabeth, pecking her affectionately on both cheeks. Such a bit of news. Oh, Contessa di Faradid Leone, said Diva sarcastically. I heard yesterday. Journey put off. Mismap just managed to stifle the excitement which would have betrayed that this was news to her. No, dear, not that, she said. I didn't suspect you of not knowing that. Unfortunate, though, isn't it? Just when we were all beginning to believe that there was a Contessa di Faradid Leone. What a sweet name. For my part, I shall believe in her when I see her. Poor Mr. Wise. What's the news, then? asked Diva. My dear, it all came upon me in a flash, said Elizabeth. It explains the portmanteau in the early train and the duel. Diva looked disappointed. She thought this was to be some solid piece of news, not one of Elizabeth's ideas only. Drive ahead, she said. They ran away from each other, said Elizabeth. Mouthing her words as if speaking to a totally deaf person who understood lip-reading. Never mind the cause of the duel. That's another affair. But whatever the cause, here she dropped her eyes. The Major, having sent the challenge, packed his portmanteau. He ran away, dear Diva, and met Captain Puffin at the station running away too. But did, began Diva. Yes, dear, the note on Captain Puffin's table to his housekeeper said he was called away suddenly. What called him away? Cowardest, dear. How ignoble it all is. And we've all been thinking how brave and wonderful they were. They fled from each other and came back together and played golf. I never thought it was a game for men. The sand dunes where they were supposed to be fighting? They might lose a ball there. But that would be the utmost. Not a life. Poor Padre going out there to stop a duel and only finding a game of golf. But I understand the nature of men better now. What an eye-opener. Diva by this time was trundling away around the room and longing to be off in order to tell everybody. She could find no hole in Elizabeth's arguments. It was founded as solidly as a Euclidean proposition. Ever occur to you that they drink? she asked. Believe in Roman roads and diaries? I don't. Mismap bounded from her chair. Danger flags flapped and crimsoned in her face. What if Diva went flying round tilling, suggesting that in addition to being cowards, those two men were drunkards? They would, as soon as any hint of the further exposure reached them, conclude that she had set the idea on foot and then. No, Diva darling, she said. Don't dream of imagining such a thing. So dangerous to hint at anything of the sort. Cowards they may be, and indeed are. But never have I seen anything that leads me to suppose that they drink. We must give them their due and stick to what we know. We must not launch accusations wildly about other matters, just because we know they are cowards. A coward need not be a drunkard, thank God. It is all miserable enough as it is. Having averted this danger, Mismap, with her radiant, excited face, seemed to be bearing all the misery very courageously. And as Diva could no longer be restrained from starting on her morning round, they plunged together into the maelstrom of the high street, riding and whirling in its waters with the solution of the portmanteau and the early train for life buoy. Very little shopping was done that morning, for every permutation and combination of tilling society, with the exception of course of the cowards, had to be formed on the pavement with a view to the amplest possible discussion. Diva, as might have been expected, gave proof of her accustomed perfidity before long, for she certainly gave the Padre to understand that the chain of inductive reasoning was of her own welding, and Elizabeth had to hurry after him to correct this grabbing impression. But the discovery in itself was so great that small false notes like these could not spoil the glorious harmony. Even Mr. Wise abandoned his usual neutrality with regard to social politics, and left his tall Malacca cane in the chemise. So keen was his gusto on seeing Mismap on the pavement outside, to glean any fresh detail of evidence. By eleven o'clock that morning the two doulas were universally known as the cowards, the Padre alone demuring and being swampingly outvoted. He held, sticking up for his sex, that the major had been brave enough to send a challenge on whatever subject to his friend, and had, though he subsequently failed to maintain that high level, shown courage of a high order, since for all he knew Captain Puffin might have accepted it. Mismap was spokesman for the mind of telling on this two indulgent judgment. Dear Padre, she said, you are too generous altogether. They both ran away. You can't get over that. Besides, you must remember that, when the major sent the challenge, he knew Captain Puffin oh so well, and quite expected he would run away. Then why did he run away himself? asked the Padre. This was rather puzzling for a moment, but Mismap soon thought of the explanation. Oh, just to make sure, she said, and tilling applauded her ready irony. And then came the climax of sensationalism, when at about ten minutes past eleven the two cowards emerged into the high street on their way to catch the eleven-twenty tram out to the links. The day threatened rain, and they both carried bags which contained a change of clothes. Just round the corner of the high street was the group which had applauded Mismap's quickness, and the cowards were among the breakers. They glanced at each other, seeing that Mismap was the most towering of the breakers, but it was too late to retreat, and they made the usual salutations. Good morning, said Diva, with her voice trembling. Off to catch the early train together? I mean the tram? Good morning, Captain Puffin, said Mismap with extreme sweetness. What a nice little travelling bag. Oh, and the Majors got one too. Hmm. A certain dismay looked from Major Flint's eyes. Captain Puffin's mouth fell open, and he forgot to shut it. Yes, change of clothes, said the Major. It looks a threatening morning. Very threatening, said Mismap. I hope you will do nothing rash or dangerous. There was a moment's silence, and the two looked from one face to another of this fell group. They all wore fixed inexplicable smiles. It will be pleasant among the sand dunes, said the Padre, and his wife gave him a loud squeak. Well, we shall be missing our trams, said the Major. Oh, au revoir, ladies. Nobody responded at all, and they hurried off down the street their bags bumping together very inconveniently. Some things up, Major, said Puffin, with true tilling periscopacity, as soon as they had got out of hearing. Precisely at the same moment, Mismap gave a little cooing laugh. Now I must run and do my bitty shopping, Padre, she said, and kissed her hand all round. The curtain had to come down for a little while on so dramatic a situation. Any discussion just then would be an anti-climax. End of Chapter 8. Recording by Rhonda Federman. Chapter 9. Part 1 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 9. Part 1. Following so closely on the encounter with Mismap last night, this irreverent attitude was probably due to some atheistical maneuver of hers. Such, at least, was the Major's view, and when he held a view he usually stated it, did sporting Benji. We've got you to thank for this, Puffin, he said. Upon my soul I was ashamed of you for saying what you did to Mismap last night, utter absence of any chivalrous feeling, hinting that if she said you were drunk you would say she was. She was as sober and lucid last night as she was this morning. She was devilish lucid to my mind this morning. Pity you didn't take her part last night, said Puffin. You thought that was a very ingenious idea of mine to make her hold her tongue. There are finer things in this world, sir, than ingenuity, said the Major. What your ingenuity has led to is this public ridicule. You may not mind that yourself. You may be used to it. But a man should regard the consequences of his act on others. My status in tilling is completely changed, changed for the worse, sir. Puffin emitted his fluty, disagreeable laugh. If your status in tilling depended on a reputation for bloodthirsty bravery, he said, the sooner it was changed the better. We are in the same boat. I don't say I like the boat, but there we are. Have a drink and you'll feel better. Never mind your status. I have a good mind never to drink again, said the Major, pouring himself out one of his stiff little glasses, if a drink leads to this sort of thing. But it didn't, said Puffin, how it all got out I can't say. Nor for the matter can you. If it hadn't been for me last night it would have been all over tilling that you and I were tipsy as well. That wouldn't have improved our status that I can see. It was in consequence of what you said to map, began the Major. But good Lord, where's the connection? Asked Puffin. Produce the connection. Let's have a look at the connection. There ain't any connection. Dueling wasn't as much as mentioned last night. Major Flint pondered this in gloomy, sipping silence. Bridge party at Mrs. Poppets the day after tomorrow, he said, but I don't feel as if I could face it. Suppose they all go on making allusions to dueling and early trains in that. I shan't be able to keep my mind on the cards for fear of it. More than a sensitive man ought to be asked to bear. Puffin made a noise that sounded rather like fudge. You're a pardon, said the Major haughtily. Granted by all means, said Puffin, but I don't see what you're in such a talking about. We're no worse off than we were before we got a reputation for being such fire-eaters. Being fire-eaters is a washout, that's all. Pleasant while it lasted, and now we're as we were. But we're not, said the Major, we're detected frauds. That's not the same as being a fraud, far from it. And who's going to rub it in, my friend? Who's been rubbing away for all she's worth? Miss Mapp, to whom, if I may say so without offence, you behaved like a cur last night. And another cur stood by and wagged his tail, retorted Puffin. This was about as far as it was safe to go, and Puffin hastened to say something pleasant about the hearth-rug, to which his friend had a suitable rejoinder. But after the affair last night, and the dark sayings in the High Street this morning, there was little content or coziness about the session. Puffin's brazen optimism was but a tinkling symbol, and the Major did not feel like tinkling at all. He but snorted and glowered, revolving in his mind how to square Miss Mapp. Allied with her, if she could but be one over, he felt he could face the rest of tilling with indifference, for hers would be the most penetrating shafts, the most stinging pleasantries. He had more, too, so he reflected to lose then Puffin, for till the affair of the duel the other had never been credited with deeds of bloodthirsty gallantry, whereas he had enjoyed no end of a reputation in amorous and honourable affairs. Marriage no doubt would settle it satisfactorily. But this bachelor life, this plenty of golf and diaries, was not to be lightly exchanged for the unknown. Short of that, a light broke, and he got to his feet, following the gleam and walking very lame out of general discomforture. Tell you what it is, Puffin, he said, you and I, particularly you, O that esteemable lady, a very profound apology for what happened last night. You ought to withdraw every word you said, and every word that I didn't say. Can't be done, said Puffin. That would be giving up my hold over your lady-friend. We should be known as drunkards all over the shop before you could say winky, worse off than before. Not a bit of it. If it's mismap—and I'm sure it is—who has been spreading these, these damaging rumours about our duel, it's because she's outraged and offended quite rightly at your conduct to her last night. Mine, too, if you like. Ample apology, sir, that's the ticket. Dog-ticket, said Puffin, no thanks. Very objectionable expression, said Major Flint, but you shall do as you like. And so, with your permission, shall I. I shall apologise for my share in that sorry performance in which—thank God, I only played a minor role. That's my view, and if you don't like it, you may dislike it. Puffin yawned. Maps a cat, he said, stroke a cat, and you'll get scratched. Shy a brick at a cat, and she'll spit at you in skedaddle. Your poor company to-night, Major, with all these squams. Then, sir, you can relieve yourself of my company, said the Major, by going home. Just what I was about to do—good night, old boy, same time tomorrow for the tram if you're not too badly mauled. Mismap, sitting by the hot water pipes in the garden-room, looked out not long after to see what the night was like. Though it was not yet half past ten, the coward-sitting rooms were both dark, and she wondered what precisely that meant. There was no bridge-party anywhere that night, and apparently there were no diaries or Roman roads either. Why this sober and chastened darkness? The Major queried for his breakfast at an unusually early hour the next morning for the courage of his resolve to placate, if possible, the hostility of Mismap had not, like that of the challenge, oozed out during the night. He addressed himself in his frock coat, seen last on the occasion when the Prince of Wales proved not to have come by the 645, and no female breast, however furious, could fail to recognize the compliment of such a formality. Dressed thus, with top hat and patent leather boots, he was clearly observed from the garden-room to emerge into the street just when Captain Puffin's hand thrust the sponge onto the window sill of his bathroom. Probably he, too, had observed this apparition for his fingers prematurely loosed hold of the sponge, and it bounded into the street, wild surmises flashed into Mismap's active brain, the most likely of which was that Major Benjy was going to propose to Mrs. Poppet, for if he had been going up to London for some ceremonial occasion he would be walking down the street instead of up it, and then she saw his agitated finger press the electric bell of her own door, so he was not on his way to propose to Mrs. Poppet. She slid from the room and hurried across the few steps of garden to the house just in time to intercept withers, though not with any idea of saying that she was out. Then withers, according to instructions, waited till Mismap had tipped out upstairs and conducted the Major to the garden-room, promising that she would tell her mistress. This was unnecessary, as her mistress knew. The Major pressed a half-crown into her astonished hand, thinking it was a florin. He couldn't precisely account for that impulse, but general propriotation was at the bottom of it. Mismap, meantime, had sat down on her bed and firmly rejected the idea that his call had anything to do with marriage. During all these years of friendliness he had not gone so far as that, and whatever the future might hold, it was not likely that he would begin now at this moment when she was so properly punishing him for his unshivalrous behaviour. But what could the frockcoat mean? There was Captain Puffin's servant picking up the sponge. She hoped it was covered with mud. It would be a very just continuation of his punishment to tell whether she would not see him, but the punishment which that would entail on herself would be more than she could bear, for she would not know a moment's peace while she was ignorant of the nature of his errand. Could he be on his way to Padres to challenge him for that very stinging allusion to sand dunes yesterday? And was he come to give her fair warning so that she might stop a duel? It did not seem likely. Unable to bear the suspense any longer she adjusted her face in the glass to an expression of frozen dignity and threw over her shoulders the cloak trimmed with blue in which, on the occasion of the Prince's visit, she had sat down in the middle of the road that matched the Major's frockcoat. She hummed a little song as she mounted the few steps to the garden room and stopped just after she had opened the door. She did not offer to shake hands. You wish to see me, Major Flint, she said, in such a voice as icebergs might be supposed to use when passing each other by night in the Arctic seas. Major Flint certainly looked, as if he hated seeing her, instead of wishing it, for he backed into a corner of the room and dropped his hat. Good morning, Miss Mapp, he said. Very good of you, I called. He clearly had a difficulty in saying what he had come to say, but if he thought that she was proposing to give him the smallest assistance, he was in error. Yes, you called, said she. Pray be seated. He did so. She stood. He got up again. I called, said the Major, to express my very deep regret at my share, or rather that I did not make a more active share. I followed, in fact, a friend of mine to speak to you in a manner that did equal discredit. Miss Mapp put her head on one side, as if trying to recollect some trivial and unimportant occurrence. Yes, she said. What was that? Captain Puffin began the Major. Then Miss Mapp remembered it all. I hope, Major Flint, she said, that you will not find it necessary to mention Captain Puffin's name to me. I wish him nothing but well, but he and his are no concern of mine. I have the charity to suppose that he was quite drunk on the occasion to which I imagine you allude. Intoxication alone could excuse what he said. Let us leave, Captain Puffin, out of whatever you have come to say to me. This was a droid. It compelled the Major to begin all over again. I come entirely on my own account, he began. I understand, said Miss Mapp, instantly bringing Captain Puffin in again. Captain Puffin, now I presume sober, has no regret for what he said when drunk. I quite see, and I expected no more and no less from him. Yes, I'm afraid I interrupted you. Major Flint threw his friend overboard like a blast from a bumping balloon. I speak for myself, he said. I behaved, Miss Mapp, like a... a... a worm. Defenseless lady, insolent fellow drunk. I allude to Captain P... I'm very sorry for my part in it. Up till this moment Miss Mapp had not made up her mind whether she intended to forgive him or not. But here she saw how crushing a penalty she might be able to inflict on Puffin if she forgave the airing and possibly truly repentant Major. He had already spoken strongly about his friend's offence, and she could render life supremely nasty for them both, particularly Puffin, if she made the Major agree that he could not, if truly sorry, hold further intercourse with him. There would be no more golf, no more diaries. Besides, if she was observed to be friendly with the Major again and to cut Captain Puffin a very natural interpretation would be that she had learned in the original quarrel that the Major had been defending her from some odious tongue to the extent of a challenge, even though he subsequently ran away. Tilling was quite clever enough to make that inference without any suggestion from her. But if she forgave neither of them they would probably go on boozing and golfing together and saying quite dreadful things about her, and not care very much whether she forgave them or not. Her mind was made up, and she gave away in smile. Oh, Major Flint, she said, it hurt me so dreadfully that you should have stood by and heard that man, if he is a man, say those awful things to me and not take my side. It made me feel so lonely. I had always been such good friends with you, and then you turned your back on me like that. I didn't know what I had done to deserve it. I lay awake ever so long. This was affecting, and he violently rubbed the nap of his hat the wrong way. Then Miss Matt broke into her sunniest smile. Oh, I'm so glad you came to say you were sorry, she said. Dear Major Benji, we're quite friends again. She dabbed her handkerchief on her eyes. So foolish of me, she said, now sit down in my most comfortable chair and have a cigarette. Major Flint made a peck at the hand she extended to him, and cleared his throat to indicate emotion. It really was a great relief to think that she would not make awful illusions to duals in the middle of bridge parties. And since you feel as you do about Captain Puffin, she said, of course you won't see anything more of him. You and I are quite one, aren't we, about that? You have dissociated yourself from him completely. The fact of your being sorry does that. It was quite clear to the Major that this condition was involved in his forgiveness, though that fact, so obvious to Miss Matt, had not occurred to him before. Still, he had to accept it, or go on house light again. He could explain to Puffin, under cover of night, or perhaps in deaf and dumb alphabet from his window, infamous, unforgivable behavior, he said. Pa! So glad you feel that, said Miss Matt, smiling till he saw the entire row of her fine teeth. And oh, may I say one little thing more? I feel this. I feel that the dreadful shock to me of being insulted like that was quite a lovely little blessing in disguise. Now that the effect has been to put an end to your intimacy with him, I never liked it, and I liked it less than ever the other night. He's not a fit friend for you. Oh, I'm so thankful! He could not face seeing it torn up again, as it certainly would be, if he failed to accept it in its entirety. Nor could he imagine himself leaving the room with a renewal of hostilities. He would lose his game of golf today as it was, for apart from the fact that he would scarcely have time to change his clothes, the idea of playing golf in a frot code in Toppat was inconceivable, and catch the eleven-twenty tram. He could not be seen in Puffin's company at all. And indeed, in the future, unless Puffin could be induced to apologize and mismap to forgive, he saw if he was to play golf at all with his friend that endless deceptions and subterfuges were necessary in order to escape detection. One of them would have to set out ten minutes before the other, and walk to the tram by some unusual and circuitous route. They would have to play in a clandestine and furtive manner, parting company before they got to the clubhouse. Disguises might be needed, but there was a peck of difficulties ahead. But he would have to go into these later. At present he must be immersed in the rapture of his forgiveness. Most generous of you, Miss Elizabeth, he said. As for that, well, I won't allude to him again. Miss Mapp gave a happy little laugh, and having made a further plan, switched away from the subject of captains and insults with alacrity. Look, she said, I found these little rose-buds and flowers still, though it is the end of November. Such brave little darlings, aren't they? One for your button-hole, Major Benjy. And then I must do my little shoppings, or withers will scold me. Withers is so severe with me, keeps me in such order. If you are going into the town, will you take me with you? I will put on my hat. Request for the present were certainly commands, and two minutes later they set forth. Luck, as usual, befriended ability, for there was puffin at his door, itching for the Major's return, else they would miss the tram. And, lo, there came stepping along Miss Mapp in her blue-trimmed cloak, and the Major attired as for marriage. Top hat, frock-code, and button-hole. She did not look at puffin and cut him, she did not seem, with the deceptiveness of appearances, to see him at all, so eager and agreeable was her conversation with her companion. The Major, so puffin thought, attempted to give him some sort of daze and hunted glance, but he could not be certain even of that. So swiftly had it to be transformed into a genial interest in what Miss Mapp was saying, and puffin stared open mouthed after them, for they were terrible as an army with banners. Then Diva, trundling swiftly out of the fish-shop, came as well as she might to a dead halt, observing this absolutely inexplicable phenomenon. Good morning, Diva darling, said Miss Mapp. Major Benjy and I are doing our little shopping together. So kind of him, isn't it? Very naughty of me to take up his time. I told him he ought to be playing golf. Such a lovely day. Oh, reservoir, sweet. Oh, and there's the Padre, Major Benjy. How quickly he walks. Yes, he sees us. And there's Mrs. Poppet. Everybody is enjoying the sunshine. What a beautiful fur coat, though I should think she found it very heavy and warm. Good morning, dear Susan. You shopping, too, like Major Benjy and me. How is your dear Isabel? Miss Mapp made the most of that morning. The magnanimity of her forgiveness earned her incredible dividends. Up and down the high street she went, with Major Benjy in attendance, buying grocery, stationary, gloves, odour cologne, bootlaces, the literary supplement of the Times, dried chamomile flowers, and every conceivable thing that she might possibly need the next week, so that her shopping might be as protracted as possible. She allowed him, such was her firmness in spoiling him, to carry her shopping basket, and when that was full, she decked him like a sacrificial ram with little parcels hung by loops of string. Sometimes she took him into a shop in case there might be someone there who had not seen him yet on her leash. Sometimes she left him on the pavement in a prominent position, marking, all the time, just as if she had been a clinical thermometer, the feverish curiosity that was burning in Telling's veins. Only yesterday she had spread the news of his cowardice broadcast. Today their comradeship was of the chattiest and most genial kind. There he was, carrying her basket, and wearing frot coat and top hat, and hung with parcels like a Christmas tree, spending the entire morning with her instead of golfing with puffin. Miss Matt positively shuttered as she tried to realize what her state of mind would have been if she had seen him thus coupled with diva. She would have suspected, rightly in all probability, some loathsome intrigue against herself. And the cream of it was that until she chose nobody could possibly find out what had caused this metamorphosis so paralyzing to inquiring intellects, for Major Benji would assuredly never tell any one that there was a reconciliation, due to his apology for his rudeness, when he had stood by and permitted an intoxicated puffin to suggest disgraceful bargains. Tilling, poor Tilling, would go crazy with suspense as to what it all meant. Never had there been such a shopping. It was nearly lunchtime when, at her front door, Major Flint finally stripped himself of her parcels and her companionship and hobbled home, profusely perspiring, and lame from walking so much on pavements and tight, cat and leather shoes. He was weary and footsore, he had had no golf, and, though forgiven, was but a wreck. She had made him ridiculous all the morning, with his frot coat and top hat and his porterages, and if forgiveness entailed any more of these nightmare sacraments of friendliness, he felt that he would be unable to endure the fatiguing accessories of the regenerate state. He hung up his top hat and wiped his wet and throbbing head. He kicked off his shoes and shed his frot coat, and furiously chi-hied for a whiskey and soda and lunch. His physical restoration was accompanied by a quickening of dismay at the general prospect. What, to put it succinctly, was life worth, even when unharassed by allusions to duels, without the solace of golf, quarrels, and diaries in the companionship of Puffin? He hated Puffin, no one more so, but he could not possibly get on without him, and it was entirely due to Puffin that he had spent so outrageous a morning, for Puffin, seeking to silence Mismat by his intoxicated bargain, had been the prime cause of all this misery. He could not even, for fear of that all-seeing eye in Mismap's garden room, go across to the house of the unforgiven sea-captain, and by a judicious recital of his woes induce him to beg Mismap's forgiveness instantly. He would have to wait till the kindly darkness fell, mere slavery, he exclaimed, with passion. A tap at his sitting-room door interrupted the chain of these melancholy reflections, and his permission to enter was responded to by Puffin himself. The major bounced from his seat. "'You mustn't stop here,' he said in a low voice, as if afraid that he might be overheard. Mismat might have seen you come in.' Puffin laughed shrilly. "'Why, of course she did,' he gaily assented. She was at her window all right. Ancient lights, I shall call her. What's this all about now?' "'You must go back,' said Major Flint agitatedly. "'She must see you go back. I can't explain now, but I'll come across after dinner when it's dark. Go, don't wait.' He positively hustled the misfied Puffin out of the house, which had grown sharp and pointed with doubts and suspicions when she observed to mentor Major Benji's house, dimpled as she saw him return into the sunniest smiles. Dear Major Benji,' she said, he has refused to see him, and she cut the string of the large cardboard box which had just arrived from the dyers with the most pleasurable anticipations. Well, it was certainly very magnificent, and Miss Greel was quite right, for there was not the faintest tinge to show that it had originally been Kingfisher Blue. She had not quite realized how brilliant Crimson Lake was in the piece, and it seemed almost to cast a woody glow on the very ceiling, and the fact that she had caused the orange chiffon with which the neck and sleeves were trimmed to be dyed black, following the exquisite taste of Mrs. Titus Trout, only through the splendor of the rest into more dazzling radiance. Kingfisher Blue would appear quite ghostly and corpse-like in its neighborhood, and painful, though that would be for Diva, it would, as all her well-wishers must hope, be a lesson to her not to indulge in such garishness. She should be taught her lesson, D. V., thought Mismap, at Susan's bridge-party tomorrow evening. Captain Puffin was being taught a lesson, too, for we are never too well to learn, or for that matter to teach. Though the night was dark and moonless, there was an inconveniently brilliant gas lamp close to the maitre's door, and that strategist, carrying his round roll of diaries, much the shape of a bottle under his coat, went about half-past nine that evening to look at the rain gutter which had been weeping into his yard, and let himself out of the back door round the corner. From there he went down past the fishmongers, crossed the road, and doubled back again up to Puffin's side of the street, which was not so vividly illuminated, though he took the precaution of making himself little with bent knees, and of limping. Puffin was already warming himself over the fire and imbibing Roman roads, and was disposed to be hilarious over the maitre's shopping. But why Toppat and Frotcoat, maitre, he asked. Another visited the Prince of Wales, I asked myself, or the voice that breathed over Ian. Have a drink, one of mine, I mean. I owe you a drink for the good laugh you gave me. Had it not been for this generosity and the need of getting on the right side of Puffin, Major Flint would certainly have resented such clumsy levity, but this double consideration caused him to take it with unwanted good humor. His attempt to laugh, indeed, sounded a little hollow, but that is the habit of self-directed merriment. Well, I allow it must have seemed amusing, he said. The fact was that I thought she would appreciate my putting a little ceremony into my errand of apology, and then she whisked me off shopping before I could go and change. Kiss and friends again, then? asked Puffin. The maitre grew a little stately over this. No such familiarity passed, he said. But she accepted my regrets with, ha, the most gracious generosity. A fine-spirited woman, sir, you'll find the same. I might, if I looked for it, said Puffin, but why should I want to make it up? You've done that, and that prevents her talking about dueling and early trams. She can't mock at me because of you. You might pass me back my bottle if you've taken your drink. The maitre reluctantly did so. You must please yourself, old boy, he said. It's your business, and no one's ever said that Benji Flint interfered in another man's affairs. But I trust you will do what good feeling indicates. I hope you value our jolly games of golf and our pleasant evenings sufficiently highly. A, how's that? asked Puffin. You going to cut me, too? The maitre sat down and put his large feet on the fender. Tacked in diplomacy, Benji, my boy, he reminded himself. Ha! that's what I like, he said. A good fire and a friend, and the rest of the world may go hang. There's no question of cutting, old man. I needn't tell you that. But we must have one of our good talks. For instance, I very unceremoniously turned you out of my house this afternoon, and I owe you an explanation of that. I'll give it to you in one word. Miss Mapp saw you come in. She didn't see me come in here this evening. Ha! ha! and that's why I can sit at my ease. But if she knew—Puffin guessed. What has happened, maitre, is that you've thrown me over from Miss Mapp, he observed. No, sir, I have not, said the maitre with emphasis. Should I be sitting here and drinking your whiskey, if I had? But this morning, after that lady had accepted my regret for my share in what occurred the other night, she assumed that since I condemned my own conduct unreservedly, I must equally condemn yours. It really was like a conjuring trick. The thing was over before I knew anything about it. And before I'd had time to say, hold on a bit, I was being led up and down the high street, carrying as much merchandise as a drove of camels. God, sir, I suffered this morning. You don't seem to realize that I suffered. I couldn't stand any more mornings like that. I haven't the stamina. A powerful woman, said Puffin, reflectively. You may well say that, observed Major Flint. That has finally said. A powerful woman she is, with a powerful tongue, and able to be powerful nasty. And if she sees you and me on friendly terms again, she'll turn the full hose onto us both unless you make it up with her. Hmm, yes. But likely as not she'll tell me in my apologies to go hang. Have a try, old man, said the Major, encouragingly. Puffin looked at his whiskey bottle. Help yourself, Major, he said. I think you'll have to help me out, you know. Go and interview her. See if there's any chance of my favorable reception. No, sir, said the Major, firmly. I will not run the risk of another morning shopping in the high street. You needn't. Watch till she comes back from her shopping to-morrow. Major Benji clearly did not like the prospect at all, but Puffin grew firmer and firmer in his absolute refusal to lay himself open to rebuff, and presently they came to an agreement that the Major was to go on his ambassadorial errand next morning. That being settled, the still undecided point about the worm cast gave rise to a good deal of heat, until it being discovered that the window was open and that their voices might easily carry as far as the garden room, they made malignant rejointers to each other in whispers. But it was impossible to go on quarreling for long in so confidential a manner, and the disagreement was deferred to a more convenient occasion. It was late when the Major left, and after putting out the light in Puffin's hall, so that he should not be silhouetted against it, he slid into the darkness and reached his own door by a subtly tour. Miss Mapp had a good deal of division of her swift mind when next morning she learned the nature of Major Benji's second errand. If she, like Mr. Wise, was to encourage Puffin to hope that she would accept his apologies, she would be obliged to remit all further punishment of him, and allow him to consort with his friend again. It was difficult to forego the pleasure of his chastisement, but, on the other hand, it was just possible that the Major might break away, and whether she liked it or not, and she would not, refused permanently to give up Puffin's society. That would be awkward, since she had publicly paraded her reconciliation with him. What further inclined her to clemency was that this very evening the Crimson Lake teagound would shed its effulgence over Mrs. Poppett's bridge-party, and Diva would never want to hear the word kingfisher again. That was enough to put anybody in a good temper. So the diplomatists returned to the miscreant with the glad tidings that Miss Mapp would hear his supplication with a favorable ear, and she took up a stately position in the garden-room, which she selected as audience chamber, near the bell so that she could ring for withers if necessary. Miss Mapp's mercy was largely tempered with justice, and she proposed, in spite of the leniency which she would eventually exhibit, to give Puffin what for first. She had not for him, as for Major Benji, that feminine weakness which made it a positive luxury to forgive him. She never even thought of Puffin as Captain Dickie. Far less let the pretty endearment slip off her tongue accidentally, and the luxury which she anticipated from the interview was that of administering a quantity of hard slaps. She had appointed half-past twelve as the hour for his suffering, so that he must go without his golf again. She put down the book she was reading when he appeared, and gazed at him stonely without speech. He limped into the middle of the room. This might be forgiveness, but it did not look like it, and he wondered whether she had got him here on false pretenses. Good morning, said he. Miss Mapp inclined her head. Silence was gold. I understood for Major Flint, began Puffin. Speech could be gold, too. If, said Miss Mapp, you have come to speak about Major Flint, you have wasted your time, and mine. How different from Major Benji, she thought. What a shrimp! The shrimp gave a slight gasp. The thing had got to be done, and the sooner he was out of range of this powerful woman the better. I am extremely sorry for what I said to you the other night, he said. I am glad you are sorry, said Miss Mapp. I offer you my apologies for what I said, continued Puffin. The whip whistled. When you spoke to me on the occasion to which you refer, said Miss Mapp, I saw, of course, at once that you were not in a condition to speak to anybody. I instantly did you that justice, for I am just to everybody. I paid no more attention to what you said than I should have paid to any tipsy vagabond in the slums. I daresay you hardly remember what you said, so that before I hear your expression of regret I will remind you of it. You threatened, unless I promised to tell nobody in what a disgusting condition you were, to say that I was tipsy. Elizabeth Mapp, tipsy! That was what you said, Captain Puffin. Captain Puffin turned extremely red. Now the shrimps being boiled, thought Miss Mapp. I can't do more than apologize, said he. He did not know whether he was angrier with his ambassador or her. Did you say you couldn't do more, said Miss Mapp, with an air of great interest? How curious! I should have thought you couldn't have done less. Well, what more can I do? asked he. If you think, said Miss Mapp, that you hurt me by your conduct that night you are vastly mistaken. And if you think you can do no more than apologize I will teach you better. You can make an effort, Captain Puffin, to break with your deplorable habits, to try to get back a little of the self-respect if you ever had any, which you have lost. You can cease trying, oh, so unsuccessfully, to drag Major Benjy down to your level. That's what you can do. She let these withering observations blight him. I accept your apologies, she said. I hope you will do better in the future, Captain Puffin, and I shall look anxiously for signs of improvement. We will meet with politeness and friendliness when we are brought together, and I will do my best to wipe all remembrance of your tipsy impertnance from my mind. And you must do your best, too. You are not young, and ingrained habits are difficult to get rid of. But do not despair, Captain Puffin, and now I will ring for withers, and she will show you out. She rang the bell and gave a sample of her generous oblivion. And we meet, do we not, this evening at Mrs. Poppitz, she said, looking not at him, but about a foot above his head. Such pleasant evenings one always has there. I hope it will not be a wet evening, but the glass is sadly down. Oh, withers! Captain Puffin is going. Good morning, Captain Puffin. Such a pleasure. Miss Mapp hummed a rollicking little tune as she observed him totter down the street. There, she said, and had a glass of burgundy for lunch as a treat. CHAPTER X. PART ONE 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 by E. F. Benson. CHAPTER X. PART ONE. The news that Mr. Wise was to be of the party that evening at Mrs. Poppitz, and was to dine there first on Famille, as he casually let slip in order to air his French, created a disagreeable impression that afternoon in tilling. It was not usual to do anything more than have a tray for your evening meal, if one of these winter bridge parties followed, and there was, to Miss Mapp's mind, a deplorable tendency to ostentation in this dinner-giving before a party. Still, if Susan was determined to be extravagant, she might have asked Miss Mapp as well, who resented this want of hospitality. She did not like either this whole and corner on Famille work with Mr. Wise. It indicated a pushing familiarity to which it was hoped Mr. Wise's eyes were open. There was another point. The party it had been ascertained would in all number ten, and if, as was certain, there would be two bridge-tables, that seemed to imply that two people would have to sit out. There were often nine at Mrs. Poppitz bridge parties, she appeared to be unable to count, but on those occasions Isabel was generally told by her mother that she did not care for bridge, and so there was no cutting out, but only a pleasant book for Isabel. But what would be done with ten? It was idle to hope that Susan would sit out, as hostess she always considered it part of her duties to play solidly the entire evening. Still, if the cutting of cards malignantly ordained that Miss Mapp was ejected, it was only reasonable to expect that after her magnanimity to the United Services, either Major Benji or Captain Puffin would be so obdurate in his insistence that she must play instead of him, that it would be only ladylike to yield. She did not, therefore, allow this possibility to dim the pleasure she anticipated from the disconfiture of Darling Diva, who would be certain to appear in the Kingfisher blue teagun and find herself ghastly and outshone by the Crimson Lake which was the color of Mrs. Trout's second toilette, and Miss Mapp, after prolonged thought as to her most dramatic moment of entrance in the Crimson Lake, determined to arrive when she might expect the rest of the guests to have already assembled. She would risk it is true being out of a rubber for a while, since bridge might have already begun, but play would have to stop for a minute of greetings while she came in, and she would beg everybody not to stir, and would seat herself quite, quite close to Diva, and openly admire her pretty frock, like one I used to have. It was, therefore, not much lacking of ten o'clock when, after she had waited a considerable time on Mrs. Poppett's threshold, Boone solefully allowed her to enter, but gave no answer to her timid inquiry of, and my very late Boone. The drawing-room door was a little ajar, and as she took off the cloak that masked the splendor of the Crimson Lake, her acute ears heard the murmur of talk going on, which indicated that bridge had not yet begun, while her acute nostrils detected the faint but certain smell of roast grouse, which showed what Susan had given Mr. Weiss for dinner, probably telling him that the birds were a present to her from the shooting lodge where she had stayed in the summer. Then after she had thrown herself a glance in the mirror and put on her smile, Boone preceded her, slightly shrugging his shoulders to the drawing-room door, which he pushed open and grunted loudly, which was his manner of announcing a guest. Miss Mapp went tripping in, almost at a run, to indicate how vexed she was with herself for being late, and there, just in front of her, stood Diva, dressed not in Kingfisher blue at all, but in the Crimson Lake of Mrs. Trout's second toilette. Perfidious Diva had had her dress dyed, too. Miss Mapp's courage rose to the occasion. Other people, majors and tipsy captains, might be cowards, but not she. Twice now, omitting the matter of the Wars of the Roses, had Diva, by some cunning, which it was impossible not to suspect of a diabolical origin, clad her odious little roundabout form in splendor's identical with Miss Mapp's. But now, without faltering even when she heard Evie's loud squeak, she turned to her hostess, who wore the order of MBE on her ample breast, and made her salutations in a perfectly calm voice. Dear Susan, don't scold me for being so late, she said, though I know I deserve it. So sweet of you! Isabel, darling, and dear Evie! Oh, and Mr. Weiss! Sweet Irene! Major Benji and Captain Puffin had a nice game of golf! And the Padre! She hesitated a moment, wondering if she could, without screaming or scratching, seem aware of Diva's presence. Then she soared, lambant, as flame. Diva, darling, she said, and bent and kissed her, even as St. Stephen in the moment of martyrdom prayed for those who had stoned him. Flesh and blood could not manage more, and she turned to Mr. Weiss, remembering that Diva had told her that Contessa Ferreira Didoloni's rival was postponed. And your dear sister has put off her journey, I understand, she said. Such a disappointment! Shall we see her telling it all, do you think? Mr. Weiss looked surprised. Dear Lady, he said, you're the second person who has said that to me. Mrs. Plastow asked me just now. Yes, it was she who told me, said Miss Mapp, in case there was a mistake. Isn't it true? Certainly not. I told my housekeeper that the Contessa's maid was ill and would follow her, but that's the only foundation I know of for this rumour. Amelia encourages me to hope she will be here early next week. Oh, no doubt that's it! said Miss Mapp in an aside so that Diva could hear. Darling Diva's always getting hold of the most erroneous information. She must have been listening to servants gossip. So glad she's wrong about it. Mr. Weiss made one of his stately inclinations of the head. Amelia will regret very much not being here to-night, he said, for I see all the great bridge-players are present. Oh, Mr. Weiss, said she, we shall all be humble learners compared with the Contessa, I expect. Not at all, said Mr. Weiss, but what a delightful idea of yours and Mrs. Plastow's to dress alike in such lovely gowns, quite like sisters. Miss Mapp could not trust herself to speak on this subject and showed all her teeth, not snarling, but amazingly smiling. She had no occasion to reply, however, for Captain Puffin joined them, eagerly deferential. What a charming surprise you and Mrs. Plastow have given us, Miss Mapp, he said, in appearing again in the same beautiful dresses, quite like— Miss Mapp could not bear to hear what she and Diva were like, and wealed about, passionately regretting that she had forgiven Puffin. This maneuver brought her face to face with the major. Upon my word, Miss Elizabeth, he said, you look magnificent to-night. He saw the light of fury in her eyes, and guessed, mere man as he was, what it was about. He bent to her and spoke low. But by jove, he said, with supreme diplomacy, somebody ought to tell our good Mrs. Plastow that some woman can wear a wonderful gown and others—ha! Dear Major Benjy, she said, cruel of you to poor Diva. But instantly her happiness was clouded again, for the Padre had a very ill-inspired notion. What ho! Fair Madam Plastow, he humorously observed to Miss Mapp. Ah, Pecavi, I am in error. It is Mistress Mapp. But let us to the cards. Our hostess craves thy presence at yon table. Contrary to custom, Mrs. Poppet did not sit firmly down at a table, nor was Isabelle told that she had an invincible objection to playing bridge. Instead she bade everybody else take their seats, and said that she and Mr. Wise had settled at dinner that they very much preferred looking on and learning to playing. With a view to enjoying this incredible treat as fully as possible, they at once seated themselves on a low sofa at the far end of the room where they could not look or learn at all, and engaged in conversation. Diva and Elizabeth, as might have been expected from the malignant influence which watched over their attire, cut in at the same table and were partners, so that they had, in spite of the deadly antagonism of identical teagounds, a financial interest in common, while a further bond between them was the eagerness with which they strained their ears to overhear anything that their hostess and Mr. Wise were saying to each other. Miss Mapp and Diva alike were perhaps busier when they were being dummy than when they were playing the cards. Over the background of each mind was spread a hatred of the other, red as their teagounds, and shot with black despair as to what on earth they should now do with these ill-fated pieces of pride. Miss Mapp was prepared to make a perfect chameleon of hers if only she could get away from Diva's hue. But what if, having changed to say purple, Diva became purple too? She could not stand a third coincidence, and besides, she much doubted whether any gown that had once been of so pronounced a crimson lake could successfully attempt to appear of any other hue except perhaps black. If Diva died, she might perhaps consult Miss Greal as to whether black would be possible, but then if Diva died there was no reason for not wearing crimson lake forever, since it would be an insincerity of which Miss Mapp humbly hoped she was incapable to go into mourning for Diva just because she died. In front of this lurid background of despair moved the figures which would have commanded all her attention, have aroused all the feelings of disgust and pity of which she was capable, had only Diva stuck to Kingfisher Blue. There they sat on the sofa, talking in voices which it was impossible to overhear, and if ever a woman made up to a man, and if ever a man was taken in by shallow artifices, they thought Miss Mapp are the ones. There was no longer any question that Susan was doing her utmost to envagle Mr. Weiss into matrimony, for no other motive, not politeness, not the charm of conversation, not the low, comfortable seat by the fire could possibly have had force enough to keep her for a whole evening from the bridge-table. That dinner on Famille, so Miss Mapp sarcastically reflected, what if it was the first of hundreds of similar dinners on Famille? Perhaps when safely married Susan would ask her to come to one of the family dinners, with a glass full of foam which she called Champagne, and the leg of a crow which she called game from the shooting lodge. There was no use in denying that Mr. Weiss seemed to be swallowing flattery and any other form of bait as fast as they were supplied him. Never had he been so made up to since the day, now two years ago, when Miss Mapp herself wrote him down as uncapturable. But now, on this awful evening of Crimson Lake, it seemed only prudent to face the prospect of his falling into the nets which were spread for him. Susan, the sister-in-law of a Quintessa. Susan, the wife of the man whose urbanity made all tilling polite to each other. Susan, a Weiss of White Church. It made Miss Mapp feel positively weary of earth. Nor was this a sum of Miss Mapp's mental activities, as she sat being dummy to Diva, for in addition to the rage, despair, and disgust with which these various topics filled her, she had narrowly to watch Diva's play, in order at the end to point out to her with lucid firmness all the mistakes she had made, while with snorts and sniffs and muttered exclamations and jerks of the head and pulling out of cards and puddings back of them, while with snorts and sniffs and muttered exclamations and jerks of the head and puddings out of cards and puddings of them back with amazing assertions that she had not quitted them, she wrestled with the task she had set herself of getting two no-trumps. It was impossible to count the tricks that Diva made, for she had a habit of putting her elbow on them after she had raked them in, as if in fear that her adversaries would filch them when she was not looking, and Miss Mapp, distracted with other interests, forgot that no trumps had been declared and thought it was hearts, of which Diva played several after their adversaries' hands were quite denuded of them. She often did that to make sure. Three tricks, she said triumphantly at the conclusion, counting the cards in the cash below her elbow. Miss Mapp gave a long sigh, but remembered that Mr. Weiss was present. You could have got two more, she said, if you hadn't played those hearts, dear. You would have been able to trump Major Benji's club in the Padres Diamond, and we should have gone out. Never mind you played beautifully otherwise. Can't trump when it's no trumps, said Diva, forgetting that Mr. Weiss was there. That's nonsense. Got three tricks, did go out. Did you think it was hearts? Wasn't. Miss Mapp naturally could not demean herself to take any notice of this. Your deal, is it, Major Benji? She asked. Me to cut. Diva had remembered just after her sharp speech to her partner that Mr. Weiss was present, and looked towards the sofa to see if there were any indications of pained surprise on his face, which might indicate that he had heard. But what she saw there, or to be more accurate what she failed to see there, forced her to give an exclamation which caused Miss Mapp to look around in the direction where Diva's bulging eyes were glued. There was no doubt whatever about it. Mrs. Poppet and Mr. Weiss were no longer there. Unless they were under the sofa they had certainly left the room together and altogether. Had she gone to put on her sable coat in this hot night? Was Mr. Weiss staggering under its weight as he fitted her into it? Miss Mapp rejected the supposition. They had gone to another room to converse more privately. Miss looked very black indeed, and she noted the time on the clock in order to ascertain when they came back how long they had been absent. The rubber went on its wild way, relieved from the restraining influence of Mr. Weiss, and when, thirty-nine minutes afterwards, it came to its conclusion and neither the hostess nor Mr. Weiss had returned. Miss Mapp was content to let Diva muddle herself madly, adding up the score with the assistance of her fingers, and went across to the other table till she should be called back to check her partner's figures. They would be certain to need checking. Has Mr. Weiss gone away already, dear Isabel? She said. How early? And four makes nine, muttered Diva, getting to her little finger. Isabel was dummy and had time for conversation. I think he has only gone with my mind to the conservatory, she said. No more diamonds, partner, to advise her about the orchids. Now the conservatory was what Miss Mapp considered a potting shed with a glass roof, and the orchids were one anemic otoglossum, and there would scarcely be room besides that for Mrs. Pappet and Mr. Weiss. The potting shed was visible from the drawing room window over which curtains were drawn. Such a lovely night, said Miss Mapp, and while Diva is checking the score may I have a peep at the stars, dear? So fond of the sweet stars. She glided to the window, conscious that Diva was longing to glide too, but was preparing to quarrel with the major score, and took her peep at the sweet stars. The light from the hall shone full into the potting shed, but there was nobody there. She made quite sure of that. Diva had heard about the sweet stars, and for the first time in her life made no objection to her adversary's total. You're right, Major Flint, eighteen pence, she said. Stupid of me! I left my handkerchief in the pocket of my cloak. I'll pop out and get it. Back in a minute. Cut again for partners. She trundled to the door and popped out of it before Miss Mapp had the slightest chance of intercepting her progress. This was bitter because the dining room opened out of the hall, and so did the book cupboard with a window which dear Susan called her Boudoir. Diva was quite capable of popping into both of these apartments. In fact, if the truants were there, it was no use bothering about the sweet stars any more, and Diva would already have won. There was a sweet moon as well, and just as baffled Miss Mapp was turning away from the window, she saw that which made her positively glue her nose to the cold window-pane and tuck the curtain in so that her silhouette should not be visible from outside. Down the middle of the garden path came the two truants, Susan and her sables, and Mr. Weiss close beside her with his coat-collar turned up. Her ample form, with the small round head on the top, looked like a short-funneled locomotive engine, and he like the driver on the foot plate. The perfidious things had said they were going to consult over the orchid. Did orchids grow on the lawn? It was news to Miss Mapp if they did. They stopped, and Mr. Weiss quite clearly pointed to some celestial object, moon or star, and they both gazed at it. The sight of two such middle-aged people behaving like this made Miss Mapp feel quite sick, but she heroically continued a moment more at her post. Her heroism was rewarded, for immediately after the inspection of the celestial object they turned and inspected each other, and Mr. Weiss kissed her. Miss Mapp scriggled from behind the curtain to the room again. Adelbaran, she said, so lovely! Simultaneously Diva re-entered with her handkerchief, thwarted and disappointed, for she had certainly found nobody either in the boudoir or in the dining-room. But there was going to be a sit-down supper, and as Boone was not there she had taken a maroon-glace. Miss Mapp was flushed with excitement and disgust, and almost forgot about Diva's gown. Found your hanky dear, she said. Then shall we cut for partners again? You and me, Major Benjy, don't scold me if I play wrong. She managed to get a seat that commanded a full-faced view of the door, for the next thing was to see how the young couple, as she had already labelled them in her sarcastic mind, looked when they returned from their amorous excursion to the orchid that grew on the lawn. They entered, most unfortunately, while she was in the middle of playing a complicated hand, and her brain was so switched off from the play by their entrance that she completely lost the thread of what she was doing, and threw away two tricks that simply required to be gathered up by her, but now lurked below Diva's elbow. What made it worse was that no trace of emotion, no heightened colour, no coy and downcast eye betrayed a hint of what had happened on the lawn. With brazen effrontery, Susan informed her daughter that Mr. Weiss thought a little leaf-mulled, what a liar, thought Miss Mapp, and triumphantly put her remaining trump onto her dummy's best card. Then she prepared to make the best of it. We've lost three, I'm afraid, Major Benjy, she said. Don't you think you overbid your hand just a little wee bit? I don't know about that, Miss Elizabeth, said the Major. If you hadn't let those two spades go, and hadn't trumped my best heart— Miss Mapp interrupted with her famous patter. Oh! but if I had taken the spades, she said quickly, I should have had to lead up to Diva's clubs, and then they would have got in the rough in diamonds, and I should never have been able to get back into your hand again. Then at the end, if I hadn't trumped your heart, I should have had to lead the losing spade, and Diva would have overtrumped, and brought in her club, and we should have gone down two more. If you follow me, I think you'll agree that I was right to do that. But all good players overbid their hands sometimes, Major Benjy. Such fun! The supper was unusually ostentatious, but Miss Mapp saw the reason for that. It was clear that Susan wanted to impress poor Mr. Weiss with her wealth, and probably when it came to excellence, he would learn some very unpleasant news. But there were agreeable little circumstances to temper her dislike of this extravagant display, for she was hungry, and Diva, always a gross feeder, spilt some hot chocolate sauce on the crimson lake, which if indelible, might supply a solution to the problem of what was to be done now about her own frock. She kept an eye, too, on Captain Puffin, to see if he showed any signs of improvement in the direction she had indicated to him in her interview, and was rejoiced to see that one of these glances was clearly the cause of his refusing a second glass of port. He had already taken the stopper out of the decanter when their eyes met, and then he put it back in again—improvement already. Everything else, pending the discovery as to whether chocolate on crimson lake spelt ruin, now faded into a middle distance, while the affairs of Susan and poor Mr. Weiss occupied the entire foreground of Miss Mapp's consciousness. Mean and cunning as Susan's conduct must have been in entrapping Mr. Weiss when others had failed to gain his attention. Miss Mapp felt that it would be only prudent to continue on the most amicable of terms with her, for as future sister-in-law to account us, and wife to the man who, by the mere exercise of his presence, could make tillings sit up and behave, she would doubtless not hesitate about giving Miss Mapp some nasty one's back if retaliation demanded. It was dreadful to think that this audacious climber was so soon to belong to the wisest of White Church, but since the moonlight had revealed that such was Mr. Weiss's intention, it was best to be friends with the mammon of the British Empire. Poppet, come Weiss, was likely to be a very important centre of social life in tilling, when not in Scotland or White Church or Capri, and Miss Mapp wisely determined that even the announcement of the engagement should not induce her to give voice to the very proper sentiments which it could not help inspiring. After all she had done for Susan in letting the door of high life in tilling swing open for her when she could not possibly keep it shut any longer, it seemed only natural that, if she only kept on good terms with her now, Susan would insist that her dear Elizabeth must be the first to be told of the engagement. This made her pause before adopting the obvious course of setting off immediately after breakfast next morning and telling all her friends, under promise of secrecy, just what she had seen in the moonlight last night. Thrilling to the narrator as such an announcement would be, it would be even more thrilling, provided only that Susan had sufficient sense of decency to tell her of the engagement for anybody else, to hurry off to all the others and inform them that she had known of it ever since the night of the bridge party. It was important, therefore, to be at home whenever there was the slightest chance of Susan coming round with her news, and Miss Mapp sat at her window the whole of that first morning so as not to miss her, and hardly attended at all to the rest of the pageant of life that moved within the radius of her observation. Her heart beat fast when, about the middle of the morning, Mr. Wise came round the dentist's corner, for it might be that the bashful Susan had sent him to make the announcement, but if so he was bashful too, for he walked by her house without pause. He looked rather worried, she thought, as well he might, and passing on disappeared round the church corner, clearly on his way to his betrothed. He carried a square parcel in his hand, about as big as some jewel case that might contain a tiara. Half an hour afterwards, however, he came back, still carrying the tiara. It occurred to her that the engagement might have been broken off. A little later, again with a quickened pulse, Miss Mapp saw the roice lumber down from the church corner. It stopped at her house, and she caught a glimpse of sables within. This time she felt certain that Susan had come with her interesting news, and waited till withers, having answered the dork, came to inquire, no doubt, whether she would see Mrs. Poppet. But alas, a minute later the roice lumbered on, carrying the additional weight of the Christmas number of punch which Miss Mapp had borrowed last night, and had not, of course, had time to glance at yet. Anticipation is supposed to be pleasanter than any fulfillment, however agreeable, and if that is the case, Miss Mapp, during the next day or two, had more enjoyment than the announcement of fifty engagements could have given her. So constantly, when from the garden-room she heard the sound of the knocker on her front door, did she spring up in certainty that this was Susan, which it never was. But, however enjoyable it all might be, she appeared to herself, at least, to be suffering tortures of suspense, through which, by degree, is an idea, painful and revolting in the extreme, yet strangely exhilarating, began to insinuate itself into her mind. There seemed a deadly probability of the correctness of the conjecture, as the week went by without further confirmation of the kiss, for, after all, who knew anything about the character and antecedence of Susan? As for Mr. Weiss, was he not a constant visitor to the fierce and fickle south, whereas every one knew morality was wholly extinct? And how, if it was all too true, should tilling treat this hitherto unprecedented situation? It was terrible to contemplate this moral upheaval, which might prove to be a social upheaval also. Time and again, as Miss Mapp vainly waited for news, she was within an ace of communicating her suspicions to the Padre. He ought to know, for Christmas, as was usual in December, was daily drawing nearer. There came, some halfway through that month, a dark and ominous afternoon, the rain falling sad and thick, and so unusual a density of cloud dwelling in the upper air that by three o'clock Miss Mapp was quite unable, until the street lamp at the corner was lit, to carry out the minor duty of keeping an eye on the houses of Captain Puffin and Major Benji. The Royce had already lumbered by her door since lunchtime, but so dark was it that, here at she might, it was lost in the gloom before it came to the dentist's corner, and Miss Mapp had to face the fact that she really did not know whether it had turned into the street where Susan's lover lived, or had gone straight on. It was easier to imagine the worst, than she had already pictured to herself a clandestine meeting between those passionate ones who, under cover of this darkness, were imperviously concealed from any observation, beneath an umbrella, from her house-roof. Nothing but a powerful searchlight could reveal what was going on in the drawing-room window of Mr. Royce's house, and apart from the fact that she had not got a powerful searchlight, it was strongly improbable that anything of a very intimate nature was going on there. It was not likely that they would choose the drawing-room window. She thought of calling on Mr. Royce and asking for the loan of a book, so that she would see whether the sables were in the hall, but even then she would not really be much further on. Even as she considered this, a sea-mist began to creep through the street outside, and in a few minutes it was blotted from view. Nothing was visible, and nothing audible but the hissing of the shrouded rain. Suddenly, from close outside came the sound of a door-knocker imperiously plied, which could be no other than her own. Only a telegram or some urgent errand could bring any one out on such a day, and unable to bear the suspense of waiting till Withers had answered it, she hurried into the house to open the door herself. Was the news of the engagement coming to her at last? Late though it was, she would welcome it even now, for it would atone in part, at any rate, it was Diva. Diva, dear, said Miss Mapp enthusiastically, for Withers was already in the hall. How sweet of you to come round! Anything special? Yes, said Diva, opening her eyes very wide, and spreading a shower of moisture as she whisked off for Macintosh. She's come. This could not refer to Susan. Who? asked Miss Mapp. Farah Diddiloni, said Diva. No, said Miss Mapp very loud, so much interested that she quite forgot to resent Diva's being the first to have the news. Let's have a comfortable cup of tea in the garden room. Tea, Withers! Miss Mapp lit the candles there, for lost in meditation she had been sitting in the dark, and with reckless hospitality poked the fire to make it blaze. Tell me all about it, she said. That would be a treat for Diva, who was such a gossip. Went to the station just now, said Diva, wanted a new timetable. Besides the Royce had just gone down. Mr. Weiss and Susan on the platform. Sables, asked Miss Mapp parenthetically to complete the picture. Swaddled, talked to them. Train came in, woman got out, kissed Mr. Weiss, shook hands with Susan, both hands, while luggage was got out. Much, asked Miss Mapp quickly, hundreds, covered with cornets and efs, two cabs. Miss Mapp's mind on a hot scent went back to the previous telegraphic utterance. Both hands, did you say, dear, she asked. Perhaps that's the Italian fashion. Maybe. Then what else do you think? Farah Diddoloni kissed Susan. Mr. Weiss and she must be engaged. I can't account for it any other way. He must have written to tell his sister. Couldn't have told her then at the station. Must have been engaged some days and we never knew. They went to look at the orchid, remember? That was when. It was bitter, no doubt, but the bitterness could be transmuted into an amazing sweetness. Then now I can talk, said Miss Mapp, with a sigh of great relief. Oh, it has been so hard keeping silence, but I felt I ought to. I knew all along, diva-deer, all, all along. How? asked diva, with a fallen crest. Miss Mapp laughed merrily. I looked out of the window, dear, while you went for your hanky and peeped into dining-room in Boudoir, didn't you? There they were on the lawn and they kissed each other. So I said to myself, Dear Susan has got him! Perseverance rewarded. Hmm! only a guess of yours, or did Susan tell you? No, dear, she said nothing, but Susan was always secretive. But they might not have been engaged at all, said diva, with a brightened eye. Man doesn't always marry a woman he kisses. Diva had betrayed the lowness of her mind now by hazarding that which had for days dwelt in Miss Mapp's mind as almost certain. She drew in her breath with a hissing noise as if in pain. Darling, what a dreadful suggestion, she said. No such idea ever occurred to me. Secretive, I thought Susan might be, but immoral, never. I must forget you ever thought that. Let's talk about something less painful. Perhaps you would like to tell me more about the Contessa. Diva had the grace to look ashamed of herself and to take refuge in the new topic so thoughtfully suggested. Couldn't see clearly, she said, so dark, but tall and lean, sneezed. That might happen to anybody, dear, said Miss Mapp, whether tall or short. Nothing more? An eyeglass, said Diva, after a thought. A single one, asked Miss Mapp, on a string. How strange for a woman! That seemed positively the last atom of Diva's knowledge, and though Miss Mapp tried on the principles of psychoanalysis to disinter something she had forgotten, the catechism led to no results whatever. But Diva had evidently something else to say, for after finishing her tea she whizzed backwards and forwards from window to fireplace with little grunts and whistles, as was her habit when she was struggling with utterance. Long before it came out Miss Mapp had, of course, guessed what it was. No wonder Diva found difficulty in speaking of a matter in which she had behaved so deploredly. About that wretched dress, she said at length, got it stained with chocolate the first time I wore it, and neither I nor Janet can get it out. Hurrah! thought Miss Mapp. Must have it dyed again, continued Diva. Thought I'd better tell you. Else you might have yours dyed the same color as mine again. King Fisher blew to Crimson Lake. All came out of Vogue and Mrs. Chout. Rather funny, you know, but expensive. You should have seen your face, Elizabeth, when you came into Susan's the other night. Should I, dearest, said Miss Mapp, trembling violently? Yes. Wouldn't have gone home with you in the dark for anything. Murder. Diva, dear, said Miss Mapp anxiously, you've got a mind which likes to put the worst construction on everything. If Mr. Weiss kisses his intended you think things too terrible for words. If I look surprised you think I'm full of hatred and malice. Be more generous, dear. Don't put evil constructions on all you see. Ho! said Diva, with a world of meaning. I don't know what you intend to convey by ho! said Miss Mapp, and I shan't try to guess. But be kinder, darling, and it will make you happier. Thinketh no evil, you know. Charity. Diva felt that the limit of what was tolerable was reached when Elizabeth lectured her on the need of charity, and she would no doubt have explained tersely and unmistakably exactly what she meant by ho! had not withers opportunely entered to clear away the tea. She brought a note with her, which Miss Mapp opened. Encourage me to hope, were the first words that met her eye. Mrs. Poppet had been encouraging him to hope again. To dine at Mr. Weiss's to-morrow, she said, no doubt the announcement will be made then. He probably wrote it before he went to the station. Yes, a few friends. You going, dear? Diva instantly got up. I think I'll run home and see, she said. By the by, Elizabeth, what about the—the tea-gown, if I go. You or I? If yours is all covered with chocolate I shouldn't think you'd like to wear it, said Miss Mapp. Could tuck it away, said Diva, just for once. Put flowers. Then send it to dyers. You won't see it again. Not Crimson Lake, I mean. Miss Mapp summoned the whole of her magnanimity. It had been put to a great strain already and was tiring out, but it was capable of one more effort. Wear it, then, she said. It'll be a treat to you. But let me know if you're not asked. I daresay Mr. Weiss will want to keep it very small. Goodbye, dear. I'm afraid you'll get very wet going home. End of Chapter 10