“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.
“No, he wasn’t there,” said Mrs. Poppit, determined to have no embroidery in her story, however much other people, especially Miss Mapp, decorated remarkable incidents till you hardly recognized them. “He wasn’t there. I daresay something had unexpectedly detained him, though I shouldn’t wonder if before long we all saw him. For I noticed in the evening paper which I was reading on the way down here, after I had seen the King, that he was going to stay with Lord Ardingly for this very next week-end. And what’s the station for Ardingly Park if it isn’t Tilling? Though it’s quite a private visit, I feel convinced that the right and proper thing for me to do is to be at the station, or, at any rate, just outside, with my Order on. I shall not claim acquaintance with him, or anything of that kind,” said Mrs. Poppit, fingering her Order; “but after my reception today at the Palace, nothing can be more likely than that His Majesty might mention—quite casually, of course—to the Prince that he had just given a decoration to Mrs. Poppit of Tilling. And it would make me feel very awkward to think that that had happened, and I was not somewhere about to make my curtsy.”
“Oh, Mamma, may I stand by you, or behind you?” asked Isabel, completely dazzled by the splendour of this prospect and prancing about the lawn…
This was quite awful: it was as bad as, if not worse than, the historically disastrous remark about super-tax, and a general rigidity, as of some partial cataleptic seizure, froze Mrs. Poppit’s guests, rendering them, like incomplete Marconi installations, capable of receiving, but not of transmitting. They received these impressions, they also continued (mechanically) to receive more chocolates and sandwiches, and such refreshments as remained on the buffet; but no one could intervene and stop Mrs. Poppit from exposing herself further. One reason for this, of course, as already indicated, was that they all longed for her to expose herself as much as she possibly could, for if there was a quality—and, indeed, there were many—on which Tilling prided itself, it was on its immunity from snobbishness: there were, no doubt, in the great world with which Tilling concerned itself so little kings and queens and dukes and Members of the Order of the British Empire; but every Tillingite knew that he or she (particularly she) was just as good as any of them, and indeed better, being more fortunate than they in living in Tilling… And if there was a process in the world which Tilling detested, it was being patronized, and there was this woman telling them all what she felt it right and proper for her, as Mrs. Poppit of Tilling (M.B.E.), to do, when the Heir Apparent should pass through the town on Saturday. The rest of them, Mrs. Poppit implied, might do what they liked, for they did not matter; but she—she must put on her Order and make her curtsy. And Isabel, by her expressed desire to stand beside, or even behind, her mother for this degrading moment had showed of what stock she came.
Mrs. Poppit had nothing more to say on this subject; indeed, as Diva reflected, there was really nothing more that could be said, unless she suggested that they should all bow and curtsy to her for the future, and their hostess proceeded, as they all took their leave, to hope that they had enjoyed the bridge-party which she had been unavoidably prevented from attending.
“But my absence made it possible to include Miss Mapp,” she said. “I should not have liked poor Miss Mapp to feel left out; I am always glad to give Miss Mapp pleasure. I hope she won her rubber; she does not like losing. Will no one have a little more red-currant fool? Boon has made it very tolerably today. A Scotch recipe of my great-grandmother’s.”
Diva gave a little cackle of laughter as she enfolded herself in her cloud again. She had heard Miss Mapp’s ironical inquiry as to how the dear King was, and had thought at the time that it was probably a pity that Miss Mapp had said that.
* * * *
Though abhorrence of snobbery and immunity from any taint of it was so fine a characteristic of public social life at Tilling, the expected passage of this distinguished visitor through the town on Saturday next became very speedily known, and before the wicker-baskets of the ladies in their morning marketings next day were half full, there was no quarter which the news had failed to reach. Major Flint had it from Mrs. Plaistow, as he went down to the eleven-twenty tram out to the golf-links, and though he had not much time to spare (for his work last night on his old diaries had caused him to breakfast unusually late that morning to the accompaniment of a dismal headache from over-application), he had stopped to converse with Miss Mapp immediately afterwards, with one eye on the time, for naturally he could not fire off that sort of news point-blank at her, as if it was a matter of any interest or importance.
“Good morning, dear lady,” he said. “By Jove! What a picture of health and freshness you are!”
Miss Mapp cast one glance at her basket to see that the paper quite concealed that article of clothing which the perfidious laundry had found. (Probably the laundry knew where it was all the time, and—in a figurative sense, of course—was “trying it on.”)
“Early to bed and early to rise, Major,” she said. “I saw my sweet flowers open their eyes this morning! Such a beautiful dew!”
“Well, my diaries kept me up late last night,” he said.“When all you fascinating ladies have withdrawn is the only time at which I can bring myself to sit down to them.”
“Let me recommend six to eight in the morning, Major,” said Miss Mapp earnestly. “Such a freshness of brain then.”
That seemed to be a cul-de-sac in the way of leading up to the important subject, and the Major tried another turning.
“Good, well-fought game of bridge we had yesterday,” he said. “Just met Mrs. Plaistow; she stopped on for a chat after we had gone.”
“Dear Diva; she loves a good gossip,” said Miss Mapp effusively. “Such an interest she has in other people’s affairs. So human and sympathetic. I’m sure our dear hostess told her all about her adventures at the Palace.”
There was only seven minutes left before the tram started, and though this was not a perfect opening, it would have to do. Besides, the Major saw Mrs. Plaistow coming energetically along the High Street with whirling feet.
“Yes, and we haven’t finished with—ha—royalty yet,” he said, getting the odious word out with difficulty.“The Prince of Wales will be passing through the town on Saturday, on his way to Ardingly Park, where he is spending the Sunday.”
Miss Mapp was not betrayed into the smallest expression of interest.
“That will be nice for him,” she said. “He will catch a glimpse of our beautiful Tilling.”
“So he will! Well, I’m off for my game of golf. Perhaps the Navy will be a bit more efficient today.”
“I’m sure you will both play perfectly!” said Miss Mapp.
Diva had “popped” into the grocer’s. She always popped everywhere just now; she popped across to see a friend, and she popped home again; she popped into