The Second E.F. Benson Megapack. E.F. Benson
that the damp had come in through her bedroom ceiling in a storm last winter, and told Withers she was going to have a look to see if any tiles were loose. In order to ascertain this for certain, she took up through the trap door a pair of binocular glasses, through which it was also easy to identify anybody who might be in the open yard outside the station. Even as she looked, Mrs. Poppit and Isabel crossed the yard into the waiting-room and ticket-office. It was a little surprising that there were not more friends in the station-yard, but at the moment she heard a loud Qui-hi in the street below, and cautiously peering over the parapet, she got an admirable view of the Major in a frock-coat and tall hat. A“Coo-ee” answered him, and Captain Puffin, in a new suit (Miss Mapp was certain of it) and a Panama hat, joined him. They went down the street and turned the corner… Across the opening to the High Street there shot the figure of darling Diva.
While waiting for them to appear again in the station-yard, Miss Mapp looked to see what vehicles were standing there. It was already ten minutes past four, and the Ardingly motors must have been there by this time, if there was anything “doing” by the 4.15. But positively the only vehicle there was an open trolly laden with a piano in a sack. Apart from knowing all about that piano, for Mrs. Poppit had talked about little else than her new upright Bluthner before her visit to Buckingham Palace, a moment’s reflection convinced Miss Mapp that this was a very unlikely mode of conveyance for any guest…She watched for a few moments more, but as no other friends appeared in the station-yard, she concluded that they were hanging about the street somewhere, poor things, and decided not to make inquiries about her coke just yet.
She had tea while she arranged flowers, in the very front of the window in her garden-room, and presently had the satisfaction of seeing many of the baffled loyalists trudging home. There was no need to do more than smile and tap the window and kiss her hand: they all knew that she had been busy with her flowers, and that she knew what they had been busy about… Out again they all came towards half-past six, and when she had watched the last of them down the hill, she hurried back to the roof again, to make a final inspection of the loose tiles through her binoculars. Brief butexciting was that inspection, for opposite the entrance to the station was drawn up a motor. So clear was the air and so serviceable her binoculars that she could distinguish the vulgar coronet on the panels, and as she looked Mrs. Poppit and Isabel hurried across the station-yard. It was then but the work of a moment to slip on the dust-cloak trimmed with blue braid, adjust the hat with the blue riband, and take up the parasol with its furled Union Jack inside it. The stick of the flag was uppermost; she could whip it out in a moment.
* * * *
Miss Mapp had calculated her appearance to a nicety. Just as she got to the sharp corner opposite the station, where all cars slowed down and her coal-merchant’s office was situated, the train drew up. By the gates into the yard were standing the Major in his top-hat, the Captain in his Panama, Irene in a civilized skirt; Diva in a brand-new walking dress, and the Padre and wee wifey. They were all looking in the direction of the station, and Miss Mapp stepped into the coal-merchant’s unobserved. Oddly enough the coke had been sent three days before, and there was no need for peremptoriness.
“So good of you, Mr. Wootten!” she said; “and why is everyone standing about this afternoon?”
Mr. Wootten explained the reason of this, and Miss Mapp, grasping her parasol, went out again as the car left the station. There were too many dear friends about, she decided, to use the Union Jack, and having seen what she wanted to she determined to slip quietly away again. Already the Major’s hat was in his hand, and he was bowing low, so too were Captain Puffin and the Padre, while Irene, Diva and Evie were making little ducking movements… Miss Mapp was determined, when it came to her turn, to show them, as she happened to be on the spot, what a proper curtsy was.
The car came opposite her, and she curtsied so low that recovery was impossible, and she sat down in the road. Her parasol flew out of her hand and out of her parasol flew the Union Jack. She saw a young man looking out of the window, dressed in khaki, grinning broadly, but not, so she thought, graciously, and it suddenly struck her that there was something, beside her own part in the affair, which was not as it should be. As he put his head in again there was loud laughter from the inside of the car.
Mr. Wootten helped her up and the entire assembly of her friends crowded round her, hoping she was not hurt.
“No, dear Major, dear Padre, not at all, thanks,” she said.“So stupid: my ancle turned. Oh, yes, the Union Jack I bought for my nephew, it’s his birthday tomorrow. Thank you. I just came to see about my coke: of course I thought the Prince had arrived when you all went down to meet the 4.15. Fancy my running straight into it all! How well he looked.”
This was all rather lame, and Miss Mapp hailed Mrs. Poppit’s appearance from the station as a welcome diversion… Mrs. Poppit was looking vexed.
“I hope you saw him well, Mrs. Poppit,” said Miss Mapp,“after meeting two trains, and taking all that trouble.”
“Saw who?” said Mrs. Poppit with a deplorable lack both of manner and grammar. “Why”—light seemed to break on her odious countenance. “Why, you don’t think that was the Prince, do you, Miss Mapp? He arrived here at one, so the station-master has just told me, and has been playing golf all afternoon.”
The Major looked at the Captain, and the Captain at the Major. It was months and months since they had missed their Saturday afternoon’s golf.
“It was the Prince of Wales who looked out of that car-window,” said Miss Mapp firmly. “Such a pleasant smile. I should know it anywhere.”
“The young man who got into the car at the station was no more the Prince of Wales than you are,” said Mrs. Poppit shrilly. “I was close to him as he came out: I curtsied to him before I saw.”
Miss Mapp instantly changed her attack: she could hardly hold her smile on to her face for rage.
“How very awkward for you,” she said. “What a laugh they will all have over it this evening! Delicious!”
Mrs. Poppit’s face suddenly took on an expression of the tenderest solicitude.
“I hope, Miss Mapp, you didn’t jar yourself when you sat down in the road just now,” she said.
“Not at all, thank you so much,” said Miss Mapp, hearing her heart beat in her throat… If she had had a naval fifteen-inch gun handy, and had known how to fire it, she would, with a sense of duty accomplished, have discharged it point-blank at the Order of the Member of the British Empire, and at anybody else who might be within range…
* * * *
Sunday, of course, with all the opportunities of that day, still remained, and the seats of the auxiliary choir, which were advantageously situated, had never been so full, but as it was all no use, the Major and Captain Puffin left during the sermon to catch the 12.20 tram out to the links. On this delightful day it was but natural that the pleasant walk there across the marsh was very popular, and golfers that afternoon had a very trying and nervous time, for the ladies of Tilling kept bobbing up from behind sand-dunes and bunkers, as, regardless of the players, they executed swift flank marches in all directions. Miss Mapp returned exhausted about tea-time to hear from Withers that the Prince had spent an hour or more rambling about the town, and had stopped quite five minutes at the corner by the garden-room. He had actually sat down on Miss Mapp’s steps and smoked a cigarette. She wondered if the end of the cigarette was there still: it was hateful to have cigarette-ends defiling the steps to her front-door, and often before now, when sketchers were numerous, she had sent her housemaid out to remove these untidy relics. She searched for it, but was obliged to come to the reluctant conclusion that there was nothing to remove…
CHAPTER III
Diva was sitting at the open drawing-room window of her house in the High Street, cutting with a pair of sharp nail scissors into the old chintz curtains which her maid had told her no longer “paid for the mending.” So, since they refused to pay for their mending any more, she was preparing to make them pay, pretty smartly too, in other ways. The pattern was of little bunches of pink roses peeping out through trellis work, and it was these