E. F. Benson Read online

  The two ladies hurried into the bow-window of the garden-room, and having now recovered their breath went on less spasmodically.

  "That's very puzzling you know," said Miss Mapp. "I'm sure it wasn't more than ten years ago, and, as I say, she seemed quite young. But of course make-up can do a great deal, and also I should think impersonation was a very ageing life. Ten years of it might easily have made her an old woman."

  "But hardly as old as this," said Diva. "And she's quite lame: two sticks, and even then great difficulty in walking. Was she lame when you saw her on the stage?"

  "I can't remember that," said Miss Mapp. "Indeed, she couldn't have been lame, for she was Romeo, and swarmed up to a high balcony. What was her face like?"

  "Kind and nice," said Diva, "but much wrinkled and a good deal of moustache."

  Miss Mapp laughed in a rather unkind manner.

  "That would make the male impersonation easier," she said. "Go on, Diva, what else?"

  "She stopped at the grocer's, and Cannick came hurrying out in the most sycophantic manner. And she ordered something — I couldn't hear what — to be sent up to Suntrap. Also she said some name, which I couldn't hear, but I'm sure it wasn't Lady Deal. That would have caught my ear at once."

  Miss Mapp suddenly pointed down the street.

  "Look! there's Cannick's boy coming up now," she said. "They have been quick. I suppose that's because she's a viscountess. I'm sure I wait hours sometimes for what I order. Such a snob! I've got an idea!"

  She flew out into the street.

  "Good-morning, Thomas," she said. "I was wanting to order — let me see now, what was it? What a heavy basket you've got. Put it down on my steps, while I recollect."

  The basket may have been heavy, but its contents were not, for it contained but two small parcels. The direction on them was clearly visible, and having ascertained that, Miss Mapp ordered a pound of apples and hurried back to the garden-room.

  "To Miss Mackintosh, Suntrap," she said. "What do you make of that, Diva?"

  "Nothing," said Diva.

  "Then I'll tell you. Lady Deal wants to live down her past, and she has changed her name. I call that very deceitful, and I think worse of her than ever. Lucky that I could see through it."

  "That's far-fetched," said Diva, "and it doesn't explain the rest. She's much older than she could possibly be if she was on the stage ten years ago, and she says she isn't Lady Deal at all. She may be right, you know."

  Miss Mapp was justly exasperated, the more so because some faint doubt of the sort had come into her own mind, and it would be most humiliating if all her early and superior information proved false. But her vigorous nature rejected such an idea and she withered Diva.

  "Considering I know that Lady Deal has taken Suntrap," she said, "and that she was a male impersonator, and that she did come down here some few days ago, and that this woman and her bath-chair came out of Suntrap, I don't think there can be much question about it. So that, Diva, is that."

  Diva got up in a huff.

  "As you always know you're right, dear," she said, "I won't stop to discuss it."

  "So wise, darling," said Elizabeth.

  Now Miss Mapp's social dictatorship among the ladies of Tilling had long been paramount, but every now and then signs of rebellious upheavals showed themselves. By virtue of her commanding personality these had never assumed really serious proportions, for Diva, who was generally the leader in these uprisings, had not the same moral massiveness. But now when Elizabeth was so exceedingly superior, the fumes of Bolshevism mounted swiftly to Diva's head. Moreover, the sight of this puzzling male impersonator, old, wrinkled, and moustached, had kindled to a greater heat her desire to know her and learn what it felt like to be Romeo on the music-hall stage and, after years of that delirious existence, to subside into a bath-chair and Suntrap and Tilling. What a wonderful life! . . . And behind all this there was a vague notion that Elizabeth had got her information in some clandestine manner and had muddled it. For all her clear-headedness and force Elizabeth did sometimes make a muddle and it would be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to catch her out. So in a state of brooding resentment Diva went home to lunch and concentrated on how to get even with Elizabeth.

  Now, it had struck her that Mrs Bartlett, the wife of the vicar of Tilling, had not been so staggered when she was informed at the choir practice of the identity and of the lurid past of the new parishioner as might have been expected: indeed, Mrs Bartlett had whispered, "Oh dear me, how exciting — I mean, how shocking," and Diva suspected that she did not mean "shocking". So that afternoon she dropped in at the Vicarage with a pair of socks which she had knitted for the Christmas tree at the workhouse, though that event was still more than three months away. After a cursory allusion to her charitable errand, she introduced the true topic.

  "Poor woman!" she said. "She was being wheeled about the High Street this morning and looked so lonely. However many males she has impersonated, that's all over for her. She'll never be Romeo again."

  "No indeed, poor thing!" said Mrs Bartlett; "and, dear me, how she must miss the excitement of it. I wonder if she'll write her memoirs: most people do if they've had a past. Of course, if they haven't, there's nothing to write about. Shouldn't I like to read Lady Deal's memoirs! But how much more exciting to hear her talk about it all, if we only could!"

  "I feel just the same," said Diva, "and, besides, the whole thing is mysterious. What if you and I went to call? Indeed, I think it's almost your duty to do so, as the clergyman's wife. Her settling in Tilling looks very like repentance, in which case you ought to set the example, Evie, of being friendly."

  "But what would Elizabeth Mapp say?" asked Mrs Bartlett. "She thought nobody ought to know her."

  "Pooh," said Diva. "If you'll come and call, Evie, I'll come with you. And is it really quite certain that she is Lady Deal?"

  "Oh, I hope so," said Evie.

  "Yes, so do I, I'm sure, but all the authority we have for it at present is that Elizabeth said that Lady Deal had taken Suntrap. And who told Elizabeth that? There's too much Elizabeth in it. Let's go and call there, Evie: now, at once."

  "Oh, but dare we?" said the timorous Evie. "Elizabeth will see us. She's sketching at the corner there."

  "No, that's her morning sketch," said Diva. "Besides, who cares if she does?"

  The socks for the Christmas tree were now quite forgotten and, with this parcel still unopened, the two ladies set forth, with Mrs Bartlett giving fearful sidelong glances this way and that. But there were no signs of Elizabeth, and they arrived undetected at Suntrap, and enquired if Lady Deal was in.

  "No, ma'am," said Susie. "Her ladyship was only here for two nights settling Miss Mackintosh in, but she may be down again tomorrow. Miss Mackintosh is in."

  Susie led the way to the drawing-room, and there, apparently, was Miss Mackintosh.

  "How good of you to come and call on me," she said. "And will you excuse my getting up? I am so dreadfully lame. Tea, Susie, please!"

  Of course it was a disappointment to know that the lady in the bath-chair was not the repentant male impersonator, but the chill of that was tempered by the knowledge that Elizabeth had been completely at sea, and how far from land, no one yet could conjecture. Their hostess seemed an extremely pleasant woman, and under the friendly stimulus of tea even brighter prospects disclosed themselves.

  "I love Tilling already," said Miss Mackintosh, "and Lady Deal adores it. It's her house, not mine, you know — but I think I had better explain it all, and then I've got some questions to ask. You see, I'm Florence's old governess, and Susie is her old nurse, and Florence wanted to make us comfortable, and at the same time to have some little house to pop down to herself when she was utterly tired out with her work."

  Diva's head began to whirl. It sounded as if Florence was Lady Deal, but then, according to the Peerage, Lady Deal was Helena Herman. Perhaps she was Helena Florence Herman.

  "It may get clearer soon," she t
hought to herself, "and, anyhow, we're coming to Lady Deal's work."

  "Her work must be very tiring indeed," said Evie.

  "Yes, she's very naughty about it," said Miss Mackintosh. "Girl-guides, mothers' meetings, Primrose League, and now she's standing for Parliament. And it was so like her; she came down here last week, before I arrived, in order to pull furniture about and make the house comfortable for me when I got here. And she's coming back tomorrow to spend a week here I hope. Won't you both come in and see her? She longs to know Tilling. Do you play bridge by any chance? Florence adores bridge."

  "Yes, we play a great deal in Tilling," said Diva. "We're devoted to it too."

  "That's capital. Now, I'm going to insist that you should both dine with us tomorrow, and we'll have a rubber and a talk. I hope you both hate majority-calling as much as we do."

  "Loathe it," said Diva.

  "Splendid. You'll come, then. And now I long to know something. Who was the mysterious lady who called here in the afternoon when Florence came down to move furniture, and returned an hour or two afterwards and asked for the card she had left with instructions that it should be given to Lady Deal? Florence is thrilled about her. Some short name, Tap or Rap. Susie couldn't remember it."

  Evie suddenly gave vent to a shrill cascade of squeaky laughter.

  "Oh dear me," she said. "That would be Miss Mapp. Miss Mapp is a great figure in Tilling. And she called! Fancy!"

  "But why did she come back and take her card away?" asked Miss Mackintosh. "I told Florence that Miss Mapp had heard something dreadful about her. And how did she know that Lady Deal was coming here at all? The house was taken in my name."

  "That's just what we all long to find out," said Diva eagerly. "She said that somebody in London told her."

  "But who?" asked Miss Mackintosh. "Florence only settled to come at lunchtime that day, and she told her butler to ring up Susie and say she would be arriving."

  Diva's eyes grew round and bright with inductive reasoning.

  "I believe we're on the right tack," she said. "Could she have received Lady Deal's butler's message, do you think? What's your number?"

  "Tilling 76," said Miss Mackintosh.

  Evie gave three ecstatic little squeaks.

  "Oh, that's it, that's it!" she said. "Elizabeth Mapp is Tilling 67. So careless of them, but all quite plain. And she did hear it from somebody in London. Quite true, and so dreadfully false and misleading, and so like her. Isn't it, Diva? Well, it does serve her right to be found out."

  Miss Mackintosh was evidently a true Tillingite.

  "How marvellous!" she said. "Tell me much more about Miss Mapp. But let's go back. Why did she take that card away?"

  Diva looked at Evie, and Evie looked at Diva.

  "You tell her," said Evie.

  "Well, it was like this," said Diva. "Let us suppose that she heard the butler say that Lady Deal was coming —"

  "And passed it on," interrupted Miss Mackintosh. "Because Susie got the message and said it was wonderfully clear for a trunk call. That explains it. Please go on."

  "And so Elizabeth Mapp called," said Diva, "and left her card. I didn't know that until you told me just now. And now I come in. I met her that very afternoon, and she told me that Lady Deal, so she had heard in London, had taken this house. So we looked up Lady Deal in a very old Peerage of hers —"

  Miss Mackintosh waved her arms wildly.

  "Oh, please stop, and let me guess," she cried. "I shall go crazy with joy if I'm right. It was an old Peerage, and so she found that Lady Deal was Helena Herman —"

  "Whom she had seen ten years ago at a music hall as a male impersonator," cried Diva.

  "And didn't want to know her," interrupted Miss Mackintosh.

  "Yes, that's it, but that is not all. I hope you won't mind, but it's too rich. She saw you this morning coming out of your house in your bath-chair, and was quite sure that you were that Lady Deal."

  The three ladies rocked with laughter. Sometimes one recovered, and sometimes two, but they were re-infected by the third, and so they went on, solo and chorus, and duet and chorus, till exhaustion set in.

  "But there's still a mystery," said Diva at length, wiping her eyes. "Why did the Peerage say that Lady Deal was Helena Herman?"

  "Oh, that's the last Lady Deal," said Miss Mackintosh. "Helena Herman's Lord Deal died without children and Florence's Lord Deal, my Lady Deal, succeeded. Cousins."

  "If that isn't a lesson for Elizabeth Mapp," said Diva. "Better go to the expense of a new Peerage than make such a muddle. But what a long call we've made. We must go."

  "Florence shall hear every word of it tomorrow night," said Miss Mackintosh. "I promise not to tell her till then. We'll all tell her."

  "Oh, that is kind of you," said Diva.

  "It's only fair. And what about Miss Mapp being told?"

  "She'll find it out by degrees," said the ruthless Diva. "It will hurt more in bits."

  "Oh, but she mustn't be hurt," said Miss Mackintosh. "She's too precious, I adore her."

  "So do we," said Diva. "But we like her to be found out occasionally. You will, too, when you know her."

  Desirable Residences

  Table of Contents

  HOUSES in Tilling are in much request during the months of August and September by holiday-makers of the quieter sort, who do not want to stay in large hotels on esplanades in places where there are piers, to flock to the shore in brilliant bathing-costumes, to pose for photographers in the certainty of winning prizes as plump sea-nymphs, to dress for dinner and dance afterwards. But families in search of tranquillity combined with agreeable pastimes, find Tilling much to their mind: there is a golf-links, there are illimitable sands and safe bathing: no treacherous currents swirl the swimmer out to sea when the tide is ebbing (indeed, the shore is so flat that the ebb merely leaves him stranded like a star-fish miles away from his clothes): there are stretches of charming country inland for exploratory picnics, and Tilling itself is so full of picturesque corners and crooked chimneys and timbered houses that easels in August render the streets almost impassable.

  The higher social circles in this little town are mainly composed of well-to-do maiden ladies and widows, most of whom, owing to the remunerative demand for holiday residences, live in rather larger houses than they otherwise would and recoup themselves by advantageous letting. Thus towards the middle of July a very lively general post takes place.

  Those who own the largest houses with gardens, like Miss Elizabeth Mapp, can let them for as much as fifteen guineas a week, and themselves take houses for that period at eight to ten guineas at week, thus collaring the difference and enjoying a change of habitation, which often gives them rich peeps into the private habits of their neighbours. Those who have smaller houses, like Mrs Plaistow, similarly let them for perhaps eight guineas a week and take something at five: the owners of the latter take cottages, and the cottagers go hop-picking.

  Many householders, of course, go away for these months, but those who remain always let their own houses and are content with something smaller. The system seems to resemble that of those thrifty villagers who earned their living by taking in each other's washing, and answers excellently.

  Miss Mapp on this moming of early July had received an enquiry from her last year's tenants, as to whether she would let her house to them again on the same terms. They were admirable tenants who brought their own servants, a father who played golf, a mother who wrote letters in the garden, and two daughters with spectacles who steadily sketched their way along the streets of the town.

  Miss Mapp instantly made up her mind to do so, and had to settle whether she should take a smaller house herself or go away. If she could get Diva Plaistow's house, she thought she would remain here and take her holiday in the winter. Diva was asking eight guineas a week, including garden-produce. The crop on her apple-trees this year was prodigious, and since garden-produce was included, Miss Mapp supposed she would have the right to fill hampe
rs with what she couldn’t eat and take them away at the end of her tenancy.

  "I shouldn't have to buy an apple all winter," thought Miss Mapp. "And then fifteen guineas a week for eight weeks makes a hundred and twenty guineas, and subtract eight times eight which is sixty-four (I shall try to get it a little cheaper) which leaves — let me see . . ."

  She arrived at the sumptuous remainder by tracing figures with the handle of her teaspoon on the table-cloth, and having written to the admirable tenants to say that she would be happy to let her house again at the same price, hurried to the house-agents to make enquiries. She could, of course, have gone to Diva direct, but it would not be pretty to haggle in person with so old a friend. She put on her most genial smile, and was artful.

  "Good-morning, Mr Hassall," she said. "A cousin has asked me to enquire about houses in Tilling for the summer. I think Mrs Plaistow’s little house might suit her, but I fancy she wouldn't pay as much as eight guineas a week."

  "Very nice house, ma'am. Very good value," said Mr Hassall. "Garden-produce included."

  "Yes, but eight guineas is rather high. But perhaps you would tell Mrs Plaistow that you've had an enquiry offering seven. And what about servants?"

  "Mrs Plaistow is thinking of getting another house for the summer, and taking her servants with her."

  Miss Mapp considered this, still smiling.

  "I see. Then would you make enquiries, and let me know as soon as possible? I am going home at once, Good-morning. What a lovely day!"

  This question about servants was, like all Miss Mapp's manoeuvres, much to the point. If Diva was leaving servants, her plan was to pick a quarrel with her cook without delay, and give her a month's warning, which would bring her to the beginning of August. But there was no need for that now.

  Miss Mapp stepped out of the office into the hot sunshine, and failed to observe Diva, round and red, trundling up the street behind her. But Diva, whose eyes were gimlets, saw Miss Mapp and where she came from, and popping in to see whether there were any enquiries for her house, heard from Mr Hassall that he had just received one, offering seven guineas a week. Such evidence was naturally conclusive, and she had not the smallest doubt that this nameless tenant was Miss Mapp herself.