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

had witnessed not so long ago the final encounter in the Wars of the Roses and the subsequent armistice, was, of course, found to be peculiarly attractive that morning to those who knew (and who did not?) that the combatants had left by the eleven-twenty steam-tram to fight among the sand-dunes, and that the intrepid Padre had rushed after them in a taxi. The Padre's taxi had returned empty, and the driver seemed to know nothing whatever about anything, so the only thing for everybody to do was to put off lunch and wait for the arrival of the next tram, which occurred at one thirty-seven. In consequence, all the doors in Tilling flew open like those of cuckoo clocks at ten minutes before that hour, and this pleasant promenade was full of those who so keenly admired autumn tints.

      From here the progress of the tram across the plain was in full view; so, too, was the shed-like station across the river, which was the terminus of the line, and expectation, when the two-waggoned little train approached the end of its journey, was so tense that it was almost disagreeable. A couple of hours had elapsed since, like the fishers who sailed away into the West and were seen no more till the corpses lay out on the shining sand, the three had left for the sand-dunes, and a couple of hours, so reasoned the Cosmic Consciousness of Tilling, gave ample time for a duel to be fought, if the Padre was not in time to stop it, and for him to stop it if he was. No surgical assistance, as far as was known, had been summoned, but the reason for that might easily be that a surgeon's skill was no longer, alas! of any avail for one, if not both, of the combatants. But if such was the case, it was nice to hope that the Padre had been in time to supply spiritual aid to anyone whom first-aid and probes were powerless to succour.

      The variety of dénouements which the approaching tram, that had now cut off steam, was capable of providing was positively bewildering. They whirled through Miss Mapp's head like the autumn leaves which she admired so much, and she tried in vain to catch them all, and, when caught, tick them off on her fingers. Each, moreover, furnished diverse and legitimate conclusion. For instance (taking the thumb).

      I. If nobody of the slightest importance arrived by the tram, that might be because

      (a) Nothing had happened, and they were all playing golf.

      (b) The worst had happened, and, as the Padre had feared, the duellists had first shot him and then each other.

      (c) The next worst had happened, and the Padre was arranging for the reverent removal of the corpse of

      (i) Major Benjy, or

      (ii) Captain Puffin, or those of

      (iii) Both.

      Miss Mapp let go of her thumb and lightly touched her forefinger.

      II. The Padre might arrive alone.

      In that case anything or nothing might have happened to either or both of the others, and the various contingencies hanging on this arrival were so numerous that there was not time to sort them out.

      III. The Padre might arrive with two limping figures whom he assisted.

      Here it must not be forgotten that Captain Puffin always limped, and the Major occasionally. Miss Mapp did not forget it.

      IV. The Padre might arrive with a stretcher. Query — Whose?

      V. The Padre might arrive with two stretchers.

      VI. Three stretchers might arrive from the shining sands, at the town where the women were weeping and wringing their hands.

      In that case Miss Mapp saw herself busily employed in strengthening poor Evie, who now was running about like a mouse from group to group picking up crumbs of Cosmic Consciousness.

      Miss Mapp had got as far as sixthly, though she was aware she had not exhausted the possibilities, when the tram stopped. She furtively took out from her pocket (she had focused them before she put them in) the opera-glasses through which she had watched the station-yard on a day which had been very much less exciting than this. After one glance she put them back again, feeling vexed and disappointed with herself, for the dénouement which they had so unerringly disclosed was one that had not entered her mind at all. In that moment she had seen that out of the tram there stepped three figures and no stretcher. One figure, it is true, limped, but in a manner so natural, that she scorned to draw any deductions from that halting gait. They proceeded, side by side, across the bridge over the river towards the town.

      It is no use denying that the Cosmic Consciousness of the ladies of Tilling was aware of a disagreeable anticlimax to so many hopes and fears. It had, of course, hoped for the best, but it had not expected that the best would be quite as bad as this. The best, to put it frankly, would have been a bandaged arm, or something of that kind. There was still room for the more hardened optimist to hope that something of some sort had occurred, or that something of some sort had been averted, and that the whole affair was not, in the delicious new slang phrase of the Padre's, which was spreading like wildfire through Tilling, a "washout". Pistols might have been innocuously discharged for all that was known to the contrary. But it looked bad.

      Miss Mapp was the first to recover from the blow, and took Diva's podgy hand.

      "Diva, darling," she said, "I feel so deeply thankful. What a wonderful and beautiful end to all our anxiety!"

      There was a subconscious regret with regard to the anxiety. The anxiety was, so to speak, a dear and beloved departed . . . And Diva did not feel so sure that the end was so beautiful and wonderful. Her grandfather, Miss Mapp had reason to know, had been a butcher, and probably some inherited indifference to slaughter lurked in her tainted blood.

      "There's the portmanteau still," she said hopefully. "Pistols in the portmanteau. Your idea, Elizabeth."

      "Yes, dear," said Elizabeth; "but thank God I must have been very wrong about the portmanteau. The outside porter told me that he brought it up from the station to Major Benjy's house half an hour ago. Fancy your not knowing that! I feel sure he is a truthful man, for he attends the Padre's confirmation class. If there had been pistols in it, Major Benjy and Captain Puffin would have gone away too. I am quite happy about that now. It went away and it has come back. That's all about the portmanteau."

      She paused a moment.

      "But what does it contain, then?" she said quickly, more as if she was thinking aloud than talking to Diva. "Why did Major Benjy pack it and send it to the station this morning? Where has it come back from? Why did it go there?"

      She felt that she was saying too much, and pressed her hand to her head.

      "Has all this happened this morning?" she said. "What a full morning, dear! Lovely autumn leaves! I shall go home and have my lunch and rest. Au reservoir, Diva."

      Miss Mapp's eternal reservoirs had begun to get on Diva's nerves, and as she lingered here a moment more a great idea occurred to her, which temporarily banished the disappointment about the duellists. Elizabeth, as all the world knew, had accumulated a great reservoir of provisions in the false bookcase in her garden-room, and Diva determined that, if she could think of a neat phrase, the very next time Elizabeth said au reservoir to her, she would work in an allusion to Elizabeth's own reservoir of corned beef, tongue, flour, Bovril, dried apricots and condensed milk. She would have to frame some stinging rejoinder which would "escape her" when next Elizabeth used that stale old phrase: it would have to be short, swift and spontaneous, and therefore required careful thought. It would be good to bring "pop" into it also. "Your reservoir in the garden-room hasn't gone 'pop' again, I hope, darling?" was the first draft that occurred to her, but that was not sufficiently condensed. "Pop goes the reservoir", on the analogy of the weasel, was better. And, better than either, was there not some sort of corn called popcorn, which Americans ate? . . . "Have you any popcorn in your reservoir?" That would be a nasty one . . .

      But it all required thinking over, and the sight of the Padre and the duellists crossing the field below, as she still lingered on this escarpment of the hill, brought the duel back to her mind. It would have been considered inquisitive even at Tilling to put direct questions to the combatants, and (still hoping for the best) ask them point-blank "Who won?" or something of that sort; but until she arrived at some sort of information, the excruciating pangs of curiosity that must be endured could be likened only to some acute