Part 11 (1/2)

”You have quite a pretty little piece of garden, Miss Mapp,” she said, ”though, to be sure, I fancied from what you said that it was more extensive. Dear me, your roses do not seem to be doing very well.

Probably they are old plants and want renewing. You must send your gardener round--you keep a gardener?--and I will let you have a dozen vigorous young bushes.”

Miss Mapp licked her dry lips. She kept a kind of gardener: two days a week.

”Too good of you,” she said, ”but that rose-bed is quite sacred, dear Mrs. Poppit. Not all the vigorous young bushes in the world would tempt me. It's my 'Friends.h.i.+p's Border:' some dear friend gave me each of my rose-trees.”

Mrs. Poppit transferred her gaze to the wistaria that grew over the steps up to the garden-room. Some of the dear friends she thought must be centenarians.

”Your wistaria wants pruning sadly,” she said. ”Your gardener does not understand wistarias. That corner there was made, I may say, for fuchsias. You should get a dozen choice fuchsias.”

Miss Mapp laughed.

”Oh, you must excuse me,” she said with a glance at Mrs. Poppit's brocaded silk. ”I can't bear fuchsias. They always remind me of over-dressed women. Ah, there's Mr. Bartlett. How de do, Padre. And dear Evie!”

Dear Evie appeared fascinated by Diva's dress.

”Such beautiful rosebuds,” she murmured, ”and what lovely shade of purple. And Elizabeth's poppies too, quite a pair of you. But surely this morning, Diva, didn't I see your good Janet in just such another dress, and I thought at the time how odd it was that----”

”If you saw Janet this morning,” said Diva quite firmly, ”you saw her in her print dress.”

”And here's Major Benjy,” said Miss Mapp, who had made her slip about his Christian name yesterday, and had been duly entreated to continue slipping. ”And Captain Puffin. Well, that is nice! Shall we go into my little garden shed, dear Mrs. Poppit, and have our tea?”

Major Flint was still a little lame, for his golf to-day had been of the nature of gardening, and he hobbled up the steps behind the ladies, with that little c.o.c.k-sparrow sailor following him and telling the Padre how badly and yet how successfully he himself had played.

”Pleasantest room in Tilling, I always say, Miss Elizabeth,” said he, diverting his mind from a mere game to the fairies.

”My dear little room,” said Miss Mapp, knowing that it was much larger than anything in Mrs. Poppit's house. ”So tiny!”

”Oh, not a bad-sized little room,” said Mrs. Poppit encouragingly. ”Much the same proportions, on a very small scale, as the throne-room at Buckingham Palace.”

”That beautiful throne-room!” exclaimed Miss Mapp. ”A cup of tea, dear Mrs. Poppit? None of that naughty red-currant fool, I am afraid. And a little chocolate-cake?”

These substantial chocolate cakes soon did their fell work of producing the sense of surfeit, and presently Elizabeth's guests dropped off gorged from the tea-table. Diva fortunately remembered their consistency in time, and nearly cleared a plate of jumbles instead, which the hostess had hoped would form a pleasant accompaniment to her dessert at her supper this evening, and was still cras.h.i.+ngly engaged on them when the general drifting movement towards the two bridge-tables set in. Mrs.

Poppit, with her gla.s.ses up, followed by Isabel, was employed in making a tour of the room, in case, as Miss Mapp had already determined, she never saw it again, examining the quality of the carpet, the curtains, the chair-backs with the air of a doubtful purchaser.

”And quite a quant.i.ty of books, I see,” she announced as she came opposite the fatal cupboard. ”Look, Isabel, what a quant.i.ty of books.

There is something strange about them, though; I do not believe they are real.”

She put out her hand and pulled at the back of one of the volumes of ”Elegant Extracts.” The door swung open, and from behind it came a noise of rattling, b.u.mping and clattering. Something soft and heavy thumped on to the floor, and a cloud of floury dust arose. A bottle of bovril embedded itself quietly there without damage, and a tin of Bath Oliver biscuits beat a fierce tattoo on one of corned beef. Innumerable dried apricots from the burst package flew about like shrapnel, and tapped at the tins. A jar of prunes, breaking its fall on the flour, rolled merrily out into the middle of the floor.

The din was succeeded by complete silence. The Padre had said ”What ho, i' fegs?” during the tumult, but his voice had been drowned by the rattling of the dried apricots. The Member of the Order of the British Empire stepped free of the provisions that b.u.mped round her, and examined them through her gla.s.ses. Diva crammed the last jumble into her mouth and disposed of it with the utmost rapidity. The birthday of her life had come, as Miss Rossetti said.

”Dear Elizabeth!” she exclaimed. ”What a disaster! All your little stores in case of the coal strike. Let me help to pick them up. I do not think anything is broken. Isn't that lucky?”

Evie hurried to the spot.

”Such a quant.i.ty of good things,” she said rapidly under her breath.