The Essential E. F. Benson: 53+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

the outside and vegetables floating in a bubbling liquid in the inside, and it was all so vulgar and opulent that with one accord everyone set to work in earnest, in order that the garden should present a less gross and greedy appearance. But there was no sign at present of the redcurrant fool, which was baffling . . .

      "And have you had a good game of golf, Major?" asked Miss Mapp, making the best of these miserable circumstances. "Such a lovely day! The white butterflies were enjoying —"

      She became aware that Diva and the Padre, who had already heard about the white butterflies, were in her immediate neighbourhood, and broke off.

      "Which of you beat? Or should I say 'won'!" she asked.

      Major Flint's long moustache was dripping with lager beer, and he made a dexterous, sucking movement.

      "Well, the Army and the Navy had it out," he said. "And if for once Britain's Navy was not invincible, eh, Puffin?"

      Captain Puffin limped away pretending not to hear, and took his heaped plate and brimming glass in the direction of Irene.

      "But I'm sure Captain Puffin played quite beautifully too," said Miss Mapp in the vain attempt to detain him. She liked to collect all the men round her, and then scold them for not talking to the other ladies.

      "Well, a game's a game," said the Major. "It gets through the hours, Miss Mapp. Yes: we finished at the fourteenth hole, and hurried back to more congenial society. And what have you done today? Fairy-errands, I'll be bound. Titania! Ha!"

      Suet errands and errands about a missing article of underclothing were really the most important things that Miss Mapp had done today, now that her bridge-party scheme had so miscarried, but naturally she would not allude to these.

      "A little gardening," she said. "A little sketching. A little singing. Not time to change my frock and put on something less shabby. But I wouldn't have kept sweet Isabel's bridge-party waiting for anything, and so I came straight from my painting here. Padre, I've been trying to draw the lovely south porch. But so difficult! I shall give up trying to draw, and just enjoy myself with looking. And there's your dear Evie! How de do, Evie love?"

      Godiva Plaistow had taken off her cloud for purposes of mastication, but wound it tightly round her head again as soon as she had eaten as much as she could manage. This had to be done on one side of her mouth, or with the front teeth in the nibbling manner of a rabbit. Everybody, of course, by now knew that she had had a wisdom tooth out at one o'clock with gas, and she could allude to it without explanation.

      "Dreamed I was playing bridge," she said, "and had a hand of aces. As I played the first it went off in my hand. All over. Blood. Hope it'll come true. Bar the blood."

      Miss Mapp found herself soon afterwards partnered with Major Flint and opposed by Irene and the Padre. They had hardly begun to consider their first hands when Boon staggered out into the garden under the weight of a large wooden bucket, packet with ice, that surrounded an interior cylinder.

      "Redcurrant fool at last," thought Miss Mapp, adding aloud: "Oh poor little me, is it, to declare? Shall I say 'no trumps'?"

      "Mustn't consult your partner, Mapp," said Irene, puffing the end of her cigarette out of its holder. Irene was painfully literal.

      "I don't, darling," said Miss Mapp, beginning to fizz a little. "No trumps. Not a trump. Not any sort of trump. There! What are we playing for, by the way?"

      "Bob a hundred," said the Padre, forgetting to be either Scotch or archaic.

      "Oh, gambler! You want the poor-box to be the rich box, Padre," said Miss Mapp, surveying her magnificent hand with the greatest satisfaction. If it had not contained so many court-cards, she would have proposed playing for sixpence, not a shilling a hundred.

      All semblance of manners was invariably thrown to the winds by the ladies of Tilling when once bridge began; primeval hatred took their place. The winners of any hand were exasperatingly condescending to the losers, and the losers correspondingly bitter and tremulous. Miss Mapp failed to get her contract, as her partner's contribution to success consisted of more twos and threes than were ever seen together before, and when quaint Irene at the end said, "Bad luck, Mapp," Miss Mapp's hands trembled so much with passion that she with difficulty marked the score. But she could command her voice sufficiently to say, "Lovely of you to be sympathetic, dear." Irene in answer gave a short, hoarse laugh and dealt.

      By this time Boon had deposited at the left hand of each player a cup containing a red creamy fluid, on the surface of which bubbles intermittently appeared. Isabel, at this moment being dummy, had strolled across from the other table to see that everybody was comfortable and provided with sustenance in times of stress, and here was clearly the proper opportunity for Miss Mapp to take a spoonful of this attempt at redcurrant fool, and with a wry face, hastily (but not too hastily) smothered in smiles, to push the revolting compound away from her. But the one spoonful that she took was so delicious and exhilarating, that she was positively unable to be good for Isabel. Instead, she drank her cup to the dregs in an absent manner, while considering how many trumps were out. The redcurrant fool made a similarly agreeable impression on Major Flint.

      " '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 redcurrant 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 hell — hallelujah did you go on when I didn't support you?"

      Even that one glass of redcurrant 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 redcurrant fool seemed very amusing to her.

      "Redcurrant fool!" she said. "What a quaint, old-fashioned 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 redcurrant 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,