her suggestion that the pop they had all heard so clearly was the opening of a bottle of stone ginger-beer was not delivered with conviction. To make sure, however, she took one more sip of the new supply, and, irradiated with smiles, made a great concession.
"I believe I was wrong," she said. "There is something in it beyond yolk of egg and cream. Oh, there's Boon; he will tell us."
She made a seductive face at Boon, and beckoned to him.
"Boon, will you think it very inquisitive of me," she asked archly, "if I ask you whether you have put a teeny drop of champagne into this delicious redcurrant fool?"
"A bottle and a half, Miss," said Boon morosely, "and half a pint of old brandy. Will you have some more, Miss?"
Miss Mapp curbed her indignation at this vulgar squandering of precious liquids, so characteristic of Poppits. She gave a shrill little laugh.
"Oh, no, thank you, Boon!" she said. "I mustn't have any more. Delicious, though."
Major Flint let Boon fill up his cup while he was not looking.
"And we owe this to your grandmother, Miss Mapp?" he asked gallantly. "That's a second debt."
Miss Mapp acknowledged this polite subtlety with a reservation.
"But not the champagne in it, Major," she said. "Grandmamma Nap —"
The Major beat his thigh in ecstasy.
"Ha! That's a good Spoonerism for Miss Isabel's book," he said. "Miss Isabel, we've got a new —"
Miss Mapp was very much puzzled at this slight confusion in her speech, for her utterance was usually remarkably distinct. There might be some little joke made at her expense on the effect of Grandmamma Mapp's invention if this lovely Spoonerism was published. But if she who had only just tasted the redcurrant fool tripped in her speech, how amply were Major Flint's good nature and Captain Puffin's incessant laugh accounted for. She herself felt very good-natured, too. How pleasant it all was!
"Oh, naughty!" she said to the Major. "Pray, hush! you're disturbing them at their rubber. And here's the Padre back again!"
The new rubber had only just begun (indeed, it was lucky that they cut their cards without any delay) when Mrs Poppit appeared on her return from her expedition to London. Miss Mapp begged her to take her hand, and instantly began playing.
"It would really be a kindness to me, Mrs Poppit," she said; "(No diamonds at all, partner?) but of course, if you won't — You've been missing such a lovely party. So much enjoyment!"
Suddenly she saw that Mrs Poppit was wearing on her ample breast a small piece of riband with a little cross attached to it. Her entire stock of good-humour vanished, and she smiled her widest.
"We needn't ask what took you to London," she said. "Congratulations! How was the dear King?"
This rubber was soon over, and even as they were adding up the score, there arose a shrill outcry from the next table, where Mrs Plaistow, as usual, had made the tale of her winnings sixpence in excess of what anybody else considered was due to her. The sound of that was so familiar that nobody looked up or asked what was going on.
"Darling Diva and her bawbees, Padre," said Miss Mapp in an aside. "So modest in her demands. Oh, she's stopped! Somebody has given her sixpence. Not another rubber? Well, perhaps it is rather late, and I must say good-night to my flowers before they close up for the night. All those shillings mine? Fancy!"
Miss Mapp was seething with excitement, curiosity and rage, as with Major Flint on one side of her and Captain Puffin on the other, she was escorted home. The excitement was due to her winnings, the rage to Mrs Poppit's Order, the curiosity to the clue she believed she had found to those inexplicable lights that burned so late in the houses of her companions. Certainly it seemed that Major Flint was trying not to step on the joints of the paving-stones, and succeeding very imperfectly, while Captain Puffin, on her left, was walking very unevenly on the cobbles. Even making due allowance for the difficulty of walking evenly there at any time, Miss Mapp could not help thinking that a teetotaller would have made a better job of it than that. Both gentlemen talked at once, very agreeably but rather carefully, Major Flint promising himself a studious evening over some very interesting entries in his Indian Diary, while Captain Puffin anticipated the speedy solution of that problem about the Roman road which had puzzled him so long. As they said their "Au reservoirs" to her on her doorstep, they took off their hats more often than politeness really demanded.
Once in her house Miss Mapp postponed her good-nights to her sweet flowers, and hurried with the utmost speed of which she was capable to her garden-room, in order to see what her companions were doing. They were standing in the middle of the street, and Major Flint, with gesticulating forefinger, was being very impressive over something . . .
* * *
Interesting as was Miss Mapp's walk home, and painful as was the light which it had conceivably thrown on the problem that had baffled her for so long, she might have been even more acutely disgusted had she lingered on with the rest of the bridge-party in Mrs Poppit's garden, so revolting was the sycophantic loyalty of the newly-decorated Member of the British Empire . . . She described minutely her arrival at the Palace, her momentary nervousness as she entered the Throne-room, the instantaneousness with which that all vanished when she came face to face with her Sovereign.
"I assure you, he gave the most gracious smile," she said, "just as if we had known each other all our lives, and I felt at home at once. And he said a few words to me — such a beautiful voice he has. Dear Isabel, I wish you had been there to hear it, and then —"
"Oh, Mamma, what did he say?" asked Isabel, to the great relief of Mrs Plaistow and the Bartletts, for while they were bursting with eagerness to know with the utmost detail all that had taken place, the correct attitude in Tilling was profound indifference to anybody of whatever degree who did not live at Tilling, and to anything that did not happen there. In particular, any manifestation of interest in kings or other distinguished people was held to be a very miserable failing . . . So they all pretended to look about them, and take no notice of what Mrs Poppit was saying, and you might have heard a pin drop. Diva silently and hastily unwound her cloud from over her ears, risking catching cold in the hole where her tooth had been, so terrified was she of missing a single syllable.
"Well, it was very gratifying," said Mrs Poppit; "he whispered to some gentleman standing near him, who I think was the Lord Chamberlain, and then told me how interested he had been in the good work of the Tilling hospital, and how especially glad he was to be able — and just then he began to pin my Order on — to be able to recognise it. Now I call that wonderful to know all about the Tilling hospital! And such neat, quick fingers he has: I am sure it would take me double the time to make a safety-pin hold, and then he gave me another smile, and passed me on, so to speak, to the Queen, who stood next him, and who had been listening to all he had said."
"And did she speak to you too?" asked Diva, quite unable to maintain the right indifference.
"Indeed she did: she said, 'So pleased,' and what she put into those two words I'm sure I can never convey to you. I could hear how sincere they were: it was no set form of words, as if she meant nothing by it. She was pleased: she was just as interested in what I had done for the Tilling hospital as the King was. And the crowds outside: they lined the Mall for at least fifty yards. I was bowing and smiling on this side and that till I felt quite dizzy."
"And was the Prince of Wales there?" asked Diva, beginning to wind her head up again. She did not care about the crowds.
