I thought of tacking chintz on and told you,” she said.
“Yes, darling,” said Elizabeth. “That’s beautiful, I agree. But poor Janet!”
“I’ll give her some other old thing,” said Diva.“Good sort, Janet. Wants me to win.”
“And about her having been seen wearing it?”
“Say she hasn’t ever worn it. Say they’re mad,” said Diva.
Miss Mapp felt it better to tear herself away before she began distilling all sorts of acidities that welled up in her fruitful mind. She could, for instance, easily have agreed that nothing was more probable than that Janet had been mistaken for her mistress…
“Au reservoir then, dear,” she said tenderly. “See you at about four? And will you wear your pretty rosebud frock?”
This was agreed to, and Diva went home to take it away from Janet.
* * * *
The reconciliation of course was strictly confined to matters relating to chintz and did not include such extraneous subjects as coal-strike or food-hoarding, and even in the first glowing moments of restored friendliness, Diva began wondering whether she would have the opportunity that afternoon of testing the truth of her conjecture about the cupboard in the garden-room. Cudgel her brains as she might she could think of no other cache that could contain the immense amount of provisions that Elizabeth had probably accumulated, and she was all on fire to get to practical grips with the problem. As far as tins of corned beef and tongues went, Elizabeth might possibly have buried them in her garden in the manner of a dog, but it was not likely that a hoarder would limit herself to things in tins. No: there was a cupboard somewhere ready to burst with strong supporting foods…
Diva intentionally arrived a full quarter of an hour on the hither side of punctuality, and was taken by Withers out into the garden-room, where tea was laid, and two card-tables were in readiness. She was, of course, the first of the guests, and the moment Withers withdrew to tell her mistress that she had come, Diva stealthily glided to the cupboard, from in front of which the bridge-table had been removed, feeling the shrill joy of some romantic treasure hunter. She found the catch, she pressed it, she pulled open the door and the whole of the damning profusion of provisions burst upon her delighted eyes. Shelf after shelf was crowded with eatables; there were tins of corned beef and tongues (that she knew already), there was a sack of flour, there were tubes of Bath Oliver biscuits, bottles of bovril, the yield of a thousand condensed Swiss cows, jars of prunes… All these were in the front row, flush with the door, and who knew to what depth the cupboard extended? Even as she feasted her eyes on this incredible store, some package on the top shelf wavered and toppled, and she had only just time to shut the door again, in order to prevent it falling out on to the floor. But this displacement prevented the door from wholly closing, and push and shove as Diva might, she could not get the catch to click home, and the only result of her energy and efforts was to give rise to a muffled explosion from within, just precisely as if something made of cardboard had burst. That mental image was so vivid that to her fevered imagination it seemed to be real. This was followed by certain faint taps from within against “Elegant Extracts” and “Astronomy.”
Diva grew very red in the face, and said “Drat it” under her breath. She did not dare open the door again in order to push things back, for fear of an uncontrollable stream of “things” pouring out. Some nicely balanced equilibrium had clearly been upset in those capacious shelves, and it was impossible to tell, without looking, how deep and how extensive the disturbance was. And in order to look, she had to open the bookcase again… Luckily the pressure against the door was not sufficiently heavy to cause it to swing wide, so the best she could do was to leave it just ajar with temporary quiescence inside. Simultaneously she heard Miss Mapp’s step, and had no more than time to trundle at the utmost speed of her whirling feet across to the window, where she stood looking out, and appeared quite unconscious of her hostess’s entry.
“Diva darling, how sweet of you to come so early!” she said.“A little cosy chat before the others arrive.”
Diva turned round, much startled.
“Hullo!” she said. “Didn’t hear you. Got Janet’s frock you see.”
(“What makes Diva’s face so red?” thought Miss Mapp.)
“So I see, darling,” she said. “Lovely rose-garden. How well it suits you, dear! Did Janet mind?”
“No. Promised her a new frock at Christmas.”
“That will be nice for Janet,” said Elizabeth enthusiastically. “Shall we pop into the garden, dear, till my guests come?”
Diva was glad to pop into the garden and get away from the immediate vicinity of the cupboard, for though she had planned and looked forward to the exposure of Elizabeth’s hoarding, she had not meant it to come, as it now probably would, in crashes of tins and bursting of bovril bottles. Again she had intended to have opened that door quite casually and innocently while she was being dummy, so that everyone could see how accidental the exposure was, and to have gone poking about the cupboard in Elizabeth’s absence was a shade too professional, so to speak, for the usual detective work of Tilling. But the fuse was set now. Sooner or later the explosion must come. She wondered as they went out to commune with Elizabeth’s sweet flowers till the other guests arrived how great a torrent would be let loose. She did not repent her exploration—far from it—but her pleasurable anticipations were strongly diluted with suspense.
Miss Mapp had found such difficulty in getting eight players together today, that she had transgressed her principles and asked Mrs. Poppit as well as Isabel, and they, with Diva, the two Bartletts, and the Major and the Captain, formed the party. The moment Mrs. Poppit appeared, Elizabeth hated her more than ever, for she put up her glasses, and began to give her patronizing advice about her garden, which she had not been allowed to see before.
“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 ‘Friendship’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
