The Greatest Works of E. F. Benson (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

harvesting in August and hop-picking in September, would live in some sort of shanty and pay no rent at all. Thus from top to bottom of this ladder of lessors and lessees they all scored, for they all received more than they paid, and all would enjoy the benefit of a change without the worry and expense of travel and hotels. Each of these ladies would wake in the morning in an unfamiliar room, would sit in unaccustomed chairs, read each other's books (and possibly letters), look at each other's pictures, imbibe all the stimulus of new surroundings, without the wrench of leaving Tilling at all. No true Tillingite was ever really happy away from her town; foreigners were very queer untrustworthy people, and if you did not like the food it was impossible to engage another cook for an hotel of which you were not the proprietor. Annually in the summer this sort of ladder of house-letting was set up in Tilling and was justly popular. But it all depended on a successful letting of Mallards, for if Elizabeth Mapp did not let Mallards, she would not take Diva's Wasters nor Diva Irene's Taormina.

      Diva and Irene therefore hurried to the garden-room where they would hear their fate; Irene forging on ahead with that long masculine stride that easily kept pace with Major Benjy's, the short-legged Diva with that twinkle of feet that was like the scudding of a thrush over the lawn.

      'Well, Mapp, what luck?' asked Irene.

      Miss Mapp waited till Diva had shot in.

      'I think I shall tease you both,' said she playfully with her widest smile.

      'Oh, hurry up,' said Irene. 'I know perfectly well from your face that you've let it. Otherwise it would be all screwed up.'

      Miss Mapp, though there was no question about her being the social queen of Tilling, sometimes felt that there were ugly Bolshevistic symptoms in the air, when quaint Irene spoke to her like that. And Irene had a dreadful gift of mimicry, which was a very low weapon, but formidable. It was always wise to be polite to mimics.

      'Patience, a little patience, dear,' said Miss Mapp soothingly. 'If you know I've let it, why wait?'

      'Because I should like a cocktail,' said Irene. 'If you'll just send for one, you can go on teasing.'

      'Well, I've let it for August and September,' said Miss Mapp, preferring to abandon her teasing than give Irene a cocktail. 'And I'm lucky in my tenant. I never met a sweeter woman than dear Mrs Lucas.'

      'Thank God,' said Diva, drawing up her chair to the still uncleared table. 'Give me a cup of tea, Elizabeth. I could eat nothing till I knew.'

      'How much did you stick her for it?' asked Irene.

      'Beg your pardon, dear?' asked Miss Mapp, who could not be expected to understand such a vulgar expression.

      'What price did you screw her up to? What's she got to pay you?' said Irene impatiently. 'Damage: dibs.'

      'She instantly closed with the price I suggested,' said Miss Mapp. 'I'm not sure, quaint one, that anything beyond that is what might be called your business.'

      'I disagree about that,' said the quaint one. 'There ought to be a sliding-scale. If you've made her pay through the nose, Diva ought to make you pay through the nose for her house, and I ought to make her pay through the nose for mine. Equality, Fraternity, Nosality.'

      Miss Mapp bubbled with disarming laughter and rang the bell for Irene's cocktail, which might stop her pursuing this subject, for the sliding-scale of twelve, eight and five guineas a week had been the basis of previous calculations. Yet if Lucia so willingly consented to pay more, surely that was nobody's affair but that of the high contracting parties. Irene, soothed by the prospect of her cocktail, pursued the dangerous topic no further, but sat down at Miss Mapp's piano and picked out God Save the King, with one uncertain finger. Her cocktail arrived just as she finished it.

      'Thank you, dear,' said Miss Mapp. 'Sweet music.'

      'Cheerio!' said Irene. 'Are you charging Lucas anything extra for use of a fine old instrument?'

      Miss Mapp was goaded into a direct and emphatic reply.

      'No, darling, I am not,' she said, 'as you are so interested in matters that don't concern you.'

      'Well, well, no offence meant,' said Irene. 'Thanks for the cocktail. Look in tomorrow between twelve and one at my studio, if you want to see far the greater part of a well-made man. I'll be off now to cook my supper. Au reservoir.'

      Miss Mapp finished the few strawberries that Diva had spared and sighed.

      'Our dear Irene has a very coarse side to her nature, Diva,' she said. 'No harm in her, but just common. Sad! Such a contrast to dear Mrs Lucas. So refined: scraps of Italian beautifully pronounced. And so delighted with everything.'

      'Ought we to call on her?' asked Diva. 'Widow's mourning, you know.'

      Miss Mapp considered this. One plan would be that she should take Lucia under her wing (provided she was willing to go there), another to let it be known in Tilling (if she wasn't) that she did not want to be called upon. That would set Tilling's back up, for if there was one thing it hated it was anything that (in spite of widow's weeds) might be interpreted into superiority. Though Lucia would only be two months in Tilling, Miss Mapp did not want her to be too popular on her own account, independently. She wanted . . . she wanted to have Lucia in her pocket, to take her by the hand and show her to Tilling, but to be in control. It all had to be thought out.

      'I'll find out when she comes,' she said. 'I'll ask her, for indeed I feel quite an old friend already.'

      'And who's the man?' asked Diva.

      'Dear Mr Georgie Pillson. He entertained me so charmingly when I was at Riseholme for a night or two some years ago. They are staying at the Trader's Arms, and off again tomorrow.'

      'What? Staying there together?' asked Diva.

      Miss Mapp turned her head slightly aside as if to avoid some faint unpleasant smell.

      'Diva dear,' she said. 'Old friends as we are, I should be sorry to have a mind like yours. Horrid. You've been reading too many novels. If widow's weeds are not a sufficient protection against such innuendoes, a baby girl in its christening-robe wouldn't be safe.'

      'Gracious me, I made no innuendo,' said the astonished Diva. 'I only meant it was rather a daring thing to do. So it is. Anything more came from your mind, Elizabeth, not mine. I merely ask you not to put it on to me, and then say I'm horrid.'

      Miss Mapp smiled her widest.

      'Of course I accept your apology, dear Diva,' she said. 'Fully, without back-thought of any kind.'

      'But I haven't apologized and I won't,' cried Diva. 'It's for you to do that.'

      To those not acquainted with the usage of the ladies of Tilling, such bitter plain-speaking might seem to denote a serious friction between old friends. But neither Elizabeth nor Diva had any such feeling: they would both have been highly surprised if an impartial listener had imagined anything so absurd. Such breezes, even if they grew far stronger than this, were no more than bracing airs that disposed to energy, or exercises to keep the mind fit. No malice.

      'Another cup of tea, dear?' said Miss Mapp earnestly.

      That was so like her, thought Diva: that was Elizabeth all over. When logic and good feeling alike had produced an irresistible case against her, she swept it all away, and asked you if you would have some more cold tea or cold mutton, or whatever it was.

      Diva gave up. She knew she was no match for her and had more tea.

      'About our own affairs then,' she said, 'if that's all settled — '

      'Yes, dear: so sweetly so harmoniously,' said Elizabeth.

      Diva swallowed a regurgitation of resentment, and went on as if she had not been interrupted.

      '— Mrs Lucas takes possession on the first of August,' she said. 'That's to say, you would like to get into Wasters that day.'

      'Early that day, Diva, if you can manage it,' said Elizabeth, 'as I want to give my servants time to clean and tidy up. I would pop across in the morning, and my servants