Part 3 (1/2)
”'Pon my word,” he said. ”That's amazingly good. Cooling on a hot day like this. Full of champagne.”
Miss Mapp, seeing that it was so popular, had, of course, to claim it again as a family invention.
”No, dear Major,” she said. ”There's no champagne in it. It's my Grandmamma Mapp's famous red-currant fool, with little additions perhaps by me. No champagne: yolk of egg and a little cream. Dear Isabel has got it very nearly right.”
The Padre had promised to take more tricks in diamonds than he had the slightest chance of doing. His mental worry communicated itself to his voice.
”And why should there be nary a wee drappie o' champagne in it?” he said, ”though your Grandmamma Mapp did invent it. Weel, let's see your hand, partner. Eh, that's a sair sight.”
”And there'll be a sair wee score agin us when ye're through with the playin' o' it,” said Irene, in tones that could not be acquitted of a mocking intent. ”Why the h.e.l.l--hallelujah did you go on when I didn't support you?”
Even that one gla.s.s of red-currant fool, though there was no champagne in it, had produced, together with the certainty that her opponent had overbidden his hand, a pleasant exhilaration in Miss Mapp; but yolk of egg, as everybody knew, was a strong stimulant. Suddenly the name red-currant fool seemed very amusing to her.
”Red-currant fool!” she said. ”What a quaint, old-fas.h.i.+oned name! I shall invent some others. I shall tell my cook to make some gooseberry-idiot, or strawberry-donkey.... My play, I think. A ducky little ace of spades.”
”Haw! haw! gooseberry idiot!” said her partner. ”Capital! You won't beat that in a hurry! And a two of spades on the top of it.”
”You wouldn't expect to find a two of spades at the bottom of it,” said the Padre with singular acidity.
The Major was quick to resent this kind of comment from a man, cloth or no cloth.
”Well, by your leave, Bartlett, by your leave, I repeat,” he said, ”I shall expect to find twos of spades precisely where I please, and when I want your criticism----”
Miss Mapp hastily intervened.
”And after my wee ace, a little king-piece,” she said. ”And if my partner doesn't play the queen to it! Delicious! And I play just one more.... Yes ... lovely, partner puts wee trumpy on it! I'm not surprised; it takes more than that to surprise me; and then Padre's got another spade, I ken fine!”
”Hoots!” said the Padre with temperate disgust.
The hand proceeded for a round or two in silence, during which, by winks and gestures to Boon, the Major got hold of another cupful of red-currant fool. There was already a heavy penalty of tricks against Miss Mapp's opponents, and after a moment's refreshment, the Major led a club, of which, at this period, Miss Mapp seemed to have none. She felt happier than she had been ever since, trying to spoil Isabel's second table, she had only succeeded in completing it.
”Little trumpy again,” she said, putting it on with the lightness of one of the white b.u.t.terflies and turning the trick. ”Useful little trumpy----”
She broke off suddenly from the chant of victory which ladies of Tilling were accustomed to indulge in during cross-roughs, for she discovered in her hand another more than useless little clubby.... The silence that succeeded became tense in quality. Miss Mapp knew she had revoked and squeezed her brains to think how she could possibly dispose of the card, while there was a certain calmness about the Padre, which but too clearly indicated that he was quite content to wait for the inevitable disclosure. This came at the last trick, and though Miss Mapp made one forlorn attempt to thrust the horrible little clubby underneath the other cards and gather them up, the Padre pounced on it.
”What ho, fair lady!” he said, now completely restored. ”Methinks thou art forsworn! Let me have a keek at the last trick but three! Verily I wis that thou didst trump ye club aforetime. I said so; there it is. Eh, that's bonny for us, partner!”
Miss Mapp, of course, denied it all, and a ruthless reconstruction of the tricks took place. The Major, still busy with red-currant fool, was the last to grasp the disaster, and then instantly deplored the unsportsmanlike greed of his adversaries.
”Well, I should have thought in a friendly game like this----” he said.
”Of course, you're within your right, Bartlett: might is right, hey? but upon my word, a pound of flesh, you know.... Can't think what made you do it, partner.”
”You never asked me if I had any more clubs,” said Miss Mapp shrilly, giving up for the moment the contention that she had not revoked. ”I always ask if my partner has no more of a suit, and I always maintain that a revoke is more the partner's fault than the player's. Of course, if our adversaries claim it----”
”Naturally we do, Mapp,” said Irene. ”You were down on me sharp enough the other day.”
Miss Mapp wrinkled her face up into the sweetest and extremest smile of which her mobile features were capable.
”Darling, you won't mind my telling you that just at this moment you are being dummy,” she said, ”and so you mustn't speak a single word.
Otherwise there is no revoke, even if there was at all, which I consider far from proved yet.”