E. F. Benson - The Complete Short Stories of E. F. Benson - 70+ Titles in One Edition

At present Diva showed no sign of going.

"How odd that your informant in London didn't tell you what sort of a woman Lady Deal was," she said, "and how lucky we've found her out in time. I am going to the choir practice this evening, and I shall be able to tell several people. All the same, Elizabeth, it would be thrilling to know a male impersonator, and she may be a very decent woman."

"Then you can go and leave your card, dear," said Miss Mapp, "and I should think you would know her at once."

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't do," said Diva regretfully. As Elizabeth had often observed with pain, she had a touch of Bohemianism about her.

Though Diva prattled endlessly on, it was never necessary to attend closely to what she was saying, and long before she left Miss Mapp had quite made up her mind as to what to do about that card. She only waited to see Diva twinkle safely down the street and then set off in the opposite direction for Suntrap. She explained to Susie with many apologies that she had left a card here by mistake, intending to bestow it next door, and thus triumphantly recovered it. That she had directed that the card should be given to Lady Deal was one of those trumpery little inconsistencies which never troubled her.

The news of the titled male impersonator spread like influenza through Tilling, and though many ladies secretly thirsted to know her, public opinion felt that such moral proletarianism was impossible. Classes, it was true, in these democratic days were being sadly levelled, but there was a great gulf between male impersonators and select society which even viscountesses could not bridge. So the ladies of Tilling looked eagerly but furtively at any likely stranger they met in their shoppings, but their eyes assumed a glazed expression when they got close. Curfew Street, however, became a very favourite route for strolls before lunch when shopping was over, for the terrace at the end of it not only commanded a lovely view of the marsh but also of Suntrap. Miss Mapp, indeed, abandoned her Sargentesque sketch of the river, and began a new one here. But for a couple of days there were no great developments in the matter of the male impersonator.

Then one morning the wheels of fate began to whizz. Miss Mapp saw emerging from the door of Suntrap a bath-chair, and presently, heavily leaning on two sticks, there came out an elderly lady who got into it, and was propelled up Curfew Street by Miss Mapp's part-time gardener. Curiosity was a quality she abhorred, and with a strong effort but a trembling hand she went on with her sketch without following the bath-chair, or even getting a decent view of its occupant. But in ten minutes she found it was quite hopeless to pursue her artistic efforts when so overwhelming a human interest beckoned, and, bundling her painting materials into her satchel, she hurried down towards the High Street, where the bath-chair had presumably gone. But before she reached it, she met Diva scudding up towards her house. As soon as they got within speaking distance they broke into telegraphic phrases, being both rather out of breath.

"Bath-chair came out of Suntrap," began Miss Mapp.

"Thought so," panted Diva. "Saw it through the open door yesterday."

"Went down towards the High Street," said Miss Mapp.

"I passed it twice," said Diva proudly.

"What's she like?" asked Miss Mapp. "Only got a glimpse."

"Quite old," said Diva. "Should think between fifty and sixty. How long ago did you see her at the music hall?"

"Ten years. But she seemed quite young then . . . Come into the garden-room, Diva. We shall see in both directions from there, and we can talk quietly."

The two ladies hurried into the bow-window of the garden-room, and having now recovered their breath went on less spasmodically.

"That's very puzzling you know," said Miss Mapp. "I'm sure it wasn't more than ten years ago, and, as I say, she seemed quite young. But of course make-up can do a great deal, and also I should think impersonation was a very ageing life. Ten years of it might easily have made her an old woman."

"But hardly as old as this," said Diva. "And she's quite lame: two sticks, and even then great difficulty in walking. Was she lame when you saw her on the stage?"

"I can't remember that," said Miss Mapp. "Indeed, she couldn't have been lame, for she was Romeo, and swarmed up to a high balcony. What was her face like?"

"Kind and nice," said Diva, "but much wrinkled and a good deal of moustache."

Miss Mapp laughed in a rather unkind manner.

"That would make the male impersonation easier," she said. "Go on, Diva, what else?"

"She stopped at the grocer's, and Cannick came hurrying out in the most sycophantic manner. And she ordered something — I couldn't hear what — to be sent up to Suntrap. Also she said some name, which I couldn't hear, but I'm sure it wasn't Lady Deal. That would have caught my ear at once."

Miss Mapp suddenly pointed down the street.

"Look! there's Cannick's boy coming up now," she said. "They have been quick. I suppose that's because she's a viscountess. I'm sure I wait hours sometimes for what I order. Such a snob! I've got an idea!"

She flew out into the street.

"Good-morning, Thomas," she said. "I was wanting to order — let me see now, what was it? What a heavy basket you've got. Put it down on my steps, while I recollect."

The basket may have been heavy, but its contents were not, for it contained but two small parcels. The direction on them was clearly visible, and having ascertained that, Miss Mapp ordered a pound of apples and hurried back to the garden-room.

"To Miss Mackintosh, Suntrap," she said. "What do you make of that, Diva?"

"Nothing," said Diva.

"Then I'll tell you. Lady Deal wants to live down her past, and she has changed her name. I call that very deceitful, and I think worse of her than ever. Lucky that I could see through it."

"That's far-fetched," said Diva, "and it doesn't explain the rest. She's much older than she could possibly be if she was on the stage ten years ago, and she says she isn't Lady Deal at all. She may be right, you know."

Miss Mapp was justly exasperated, the more so because some faint doubt of the sort had come into her own mind, and it would be most humiliating if all her early and superior information proved false. But her vigorous nature rejected such an idea and she withered Diva.

"Considering I know that Lady Deal has taken Suntrap," she said, "and that she was a male impersonator, and that she did come down here some few days ago, and that this woman and her bath-chair came out of Suntrap, I don't think there can be much question about it. So that, Diva, is that."

Diva got up in a huff.

"As you always know you're right, dear," she said, "I won't stop to discuss it."

"So wise, darling," said Elizabeth.

Now Miss Mapp's social dictatorship among the ladies of Tilling had long been paramount, but every now and then signs of rebellious upheavals showed themselves. By virtue of her commanding personality these had never assumed really serious proportions, for Diva, who was generally the leader in these uprisings, had not the same moral massiveness. But now when Elizabeth was so exceedingly superior, the fumes of Bolshevism mounted swiftly to Diva's head. Moreover, the sight of this puzzling male impersonator, old, wrinkled, and moustached, had kindled to a greater heat her desire to know her and learn what it felt like to be Romeo on the music-hall stage and, after years of that delirious existence, to subside into a bath-chair and Suntrap and Tilling. What a wonderful life! . . . And behind all this there was a vague notion that Elizabeth had got her information in some clandestine manner and had muddled it. For all her clear-headedness and force Elizabeth did sometimes make a muddle and it would be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to catch her out. So in a state of brooding resentment Diva went home to lunch and concentrated on how to get even with Elizabeth.