next day, and omitted to say good-morning to her rainbow of piggies. She had run short of wool for her knitting, and Boxing Day appeared to her a very ill-advised institution. You would have imagined, thought Miss Mapp, as she began cracking her egg, that the tradespeople had had enough relaxation on Christmas Day, especially when, as on this occasion, it was immediately preceded by Sunday, and would have been all the better for getting to work again. She never relaxed her effort for a single day in the year, and why —
An overpowering knocking on her front-door caused her to stop cracking her egg. That imperious summons was succeeded by but a moment of silence, and then it began again. She heard the hurried step of Withers across the hall, and almost before she could have been supposed to reach the front door, Diva burst into the room.
"Dead!" she said. "In his soup. Captain Puffin. Can't wait!"
She whirled out again and the front door banged.
Miss Mapp ate her egg in three mouthfuls, had no marmalade at all, and putting on the Prince of Wales's cloak, tripped down into the High Street. Though all shops were shut, Evie was there with her market basket, eagerly listening to what Mrs Brace, the doctor's wife, was communicating. Though Mrs Brace was not, strictly speaking, "in society", Miss Mapp waived all social distinctions, and pressed her hand with a mournful smile.
"Is it all too terribly true?" she asked.
Mrs Brace did not take the smallest notice of her, and, dropping her voice, spoke to Evie in tones so low that Miss Mapp could not catch a single syllable except the word soup, which seemed to imply that Diva had got hold of some correct news at last. Evie gave a shrill little scream at the concluding words, whatever they were, as Mrs Brace hurried away.
Miss Mapp firmly cornered Evie, and heard what had happened. Captain Puffin had gone up to bed last night, not feeling well, without having any dinner. But he had told Mrs Gashly to make him some soup, and he would not want anything else. His parlour-maid had brought it to him, and had soon afterwards opened the door to Major Flint, who, learning that his friend had gone to bed, went away. She called her master in the morning, and found him sitting, still dressed, with his face in the soup which he had poured out into a deep soup-plate. This was very odd, and she had called Mrs Gashly. They settled that he was dead, and rang up the doctor, who agreed with them. It was clear that Captain Puffin had had a stroke of some sort, and had fallen forward into the soup which he had just poured out . . .
"But he didn't die of his stroke," said Evie in a strangled whisper. "He was drowned."
"Drowned, dear?" said Miss Mapp.
"Yes. Lungs were full of ox-tail, oh, dear me! A stroke first, and he fell forward with his face in his soup-plate and got his nose and mouth quite covered with the soup. He was drowned. All on dry land and in his bedroom. Too terrible. What dangers we are all in!"
She gave a loud squeak and escaped, to tell her husband.
* * *
Diva had finished calling on everybody, and approached rapidly.
"He must have died of a stroke," said Diva. "Very much depressed lately. That precedes a stroke."
"Oh, then, haven't you heard, dear?" said Miss Mapp. "It is all too terrible! On Christmas Day, too!"
"Suicide?" asked Diva. "Oh, how shocking!"
"No, dear. It was like this . . ."
* * *
Miss Mapp got back to her house long before she usually left it. Her cook came up with the proposed bill of fare for the day.
"That will do for lunch," said Miss Mapp. "But not soup in the evening. A little fish from what was left over yesterday, and some toasted cheese. That will be plenty. Just a tray."
Miss Mapp went to the garden-room and sat at her window.
"All so sudden," she said to herself.
She sighed.
"I dare say there may have been much that was good in Captain Puffin," she thought, "that we knew nothing about."
She wore a wintry smile.
"Major Benjy will feel very lonely," she said.
Epilogue
Miss Mapp went to the garden-room and sat at her window . . .
It was a warm, bright day of February, and a butterfly was enjoying itself in the pale sunshine on the other window, and perhaps (so Miss Mapp sympathetically interpreted its feelings) was rather annoyed that it could not fly away through the pane. It was not a white butterfly, but a tortoiseshell, very pretty, and in order to let it enjoy itself more, she opened the window and it fluttered out into the garden. Before it had flown many yards, a starling ate most of it up, so the starling enjoyed itself too.
Miss Mapp fully shared in the pleasure first of the tortoiseshell and then of the starling, for she was enjoying herself very much too, though her left wrist was terribly stiff. But Major Benjy was so cruel: he insisted on her learning that turn of the wrist which was so important in golf.
"Upon my word, you've got it now, Miss Elizabeth," he had said to her yesterday, and then made her do it all over again fifty times more. ("Such a bully!") Sometimes she struck the ground, sometimes she struck the ball, sometimes she struck the air. But he had been very much pleased with her. And she was very much pleased with him. She forgot about the butterfly and remembered the starling.
It was idle to deny that the last six weeks had been a terrific strain, and the strain on her left wrist was nothing to them. The worst tension of all, perhaps, was when Diva had bounced in with the news that the Contessa was coming back. That was so like Diva: the only foundation for the report proved to be that Figgis had said to her Janet that Mr Wyse was coming back, and either Janet had misunderstood Figgis, or Diva (far more probably) had misunderstood Janet, and Miss Mapp only hoped that Diva had not done so on purpose, though it looked like it. Stupid as poor Diva undoubtedly was, it was hard for Charity itself to believe that she had thought that Janet really said that. But when this report proved to be totally unfounded, Miss Mapp rose to the occasion, and said that Diva had spoken out of stupidity and not out of malice towards her . . .
Then in due course Mr Wyse had come back and the two Poppits had come back, and only three days ago one Poppit had become a Wyse, and they had all three gone for a motor-tour on the Continent in the Royce. Very likely they would go as far south as Capri, and Susan would stay with her new grand Italian connections. What she would be like when she got back Miss Mapp forbore to conjecture, since it was no use anticipating trouble; but Susan had been so grandiose about the Wyses, multiplying their incomes and their acreage by fifteen or twenty, so Miss Mapp conjectured, and talking so much about country families, that the liveliest imagination failed to picture what she would make of the Faragliones. She already alluded to the Count as "My brother-in-law Cecco Faraglione", but had luckily heard Diva say "Faradiddleony" in a loud aside, which had made her a little more reticent. Susan had taken the insignia of the Member of the British Empire with her, as she at once conceived the idea of being presented to the Queen of Italy by Amelia, and going to a court ball, and Isabel had taken her manuscript book of Malaprops and Spoonerisms. If she put down all the Italian malaprops that Mrs Wyse would commit, it was likely
