Part 28 (2/2)

She took up the ear-piece and said, ”Hullo!”

It was certainly Mr. Wyse's voice that spoke to her, and it seemed to tremble with anxiety.

”Dear lady,” he began, ”a most terrible thing has happened----”

(Wonder if Elizabeth's very ill, thought Diva.)

”Quite terrible,” said Mr. Wyse. ”Can you hear?”

”Yes,” said Diva, hardening her heart.

”By the most calamitous mistake the note which I wrote you yesterday was never delivered. Figgis has just found it in the pocket of his overcoat.

I shall certainly dismiss him unless you plead for him. Can you hear?”

”Yes,” said Diva excitedly.

”In it I told you that I had been encouraged to hope that you would dine with me to-night. There was such a gratifying response to my other invitations that I most culpably and carelessly, dear lady, thought that everybody had accepted. Can you hear?”

”Of course I can!” shouted Diva.

”Well, I come on my knees to you. Can you possibly forgive the joint stupidity of Figgis and me, and honour me after all? We will put dinner off, of course. At what time, in case you are ever so kind and indulgent as to come, shall we have it? Do not break my heart by refusing.

Su--Mrs. Poppit will send her car for you.”

”I have already dressed for dinner,” said Diva proudly. ”Very pleased to come at once.”

”You are too kind; you are angelic,” said Mr. Wyse. ”The car shall start at once; it is at my door now.”

”Right,” said Diva.

”Too good--too kind,” murmured Mr. Wyse. ”Figgis, what do I do next?”

Diva clapped the instrument into place.

”Powder,” she said to herself, remembering what she had seen in the gla.s.s, and whizzed upstairs. Her fish would have to be degraded into kedgeree, though plaice would have done just as well as sole for that; the cutlets could be heated up again, and perhaps the whisking for the apple-meringue had not begun yet, and could still be stopped.

”Janet!” she shouted. ”Going out to dinner! Stop the meringue.”

She dashed an interesting pallor on to her face as she heard the hooting of the Royce, and coming downstairs, stepped into its warm luxuriousness, for the electric lamp was burning. There were Susan's sables there--it was thoughtful of Susan to put them in, but ostentatious--and there was a carriage rug, which she was convinced was new, and was very likely a present from Mr. Wyse. And soon there was the light streaming out from Mr. Wyse's open door, and Mr. Wyse himself in the hall to meet and greet and thank and bless her. She pleaded for the contrite Figgis, and was conducted in a blaze of triumph into the drawing-room, where all Tilling was awaiting her. She was led up to the Contessa, with whom Miss Mapp, wreathed in sycophantic smiles, was eagerly conversing.

The crimson-lakes....

There were embarra.s.sing moments during dinner; the Contessa confused by having so many people introduced to her in a lump, got all their names wrong, and addressed her neighbours as Captain Flint and Major Puffin, and thought that Diva was Mrs. Mapp. She seemed vivacious and good-humoured, dropped her eye-gla.s.s into her soup, talked with her mouth full, and drank a good deal of wine, which was a very bad example for Major Puffin. Then there were many sudden and complete pauses in the talk, for Diva's news of the kissing of Mrs. Poppit by the Contessa had spread like wildfire through the fog this morning, owing to Miss Mapp's dissemination of it, and now, whenever Mr. Wyse raised his voice ever so little, everybody else stopped talking, in the expectation that the news was about to be announced. Occasionally, also, the Contessa addressed some remark to her brother in shrill and voluble Italian, which rather confirmed the gloomy estimate of her table-manners in the matter of talking with her mouth full, for to speak in Italian was equivalent to whispering, since the purport of what she said could not be understood by anybody except him.... Then also, the sensation of dining with a countess produced a slight feeling of strain, which, in addition to the correct behaviour which Mr. Wyse's presence always induced, almost congealed correctness into stiffness. But as dinner went on her evident enjoyment of herself made itself felt, and her eccentricities, though carefully observed and noted by Miss Mapp, were not succeeded by silences and hurried bursts of conversation.

”And is your ladys.h.i.+p making a long stay in Tilling?” asked the (real) Major, to cover the pause which had been caused by Mr. Wyse saying something across the table to Isabel.

She dropped her eye-gla.s.s with quite a splash into her gravy, pulled it out again by the string as if landing a fish and sucked it.

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