Miss Mapp put a meditative finger to her forehead. She did not mean to lie, but she certainly did not mean to tell the truth.
(Typical of the sly humour which characterises the Mapp and Lucia stories)
Edward Frederick (E.F.) Benson wrote over 90 books. He is now mostly remembered for the series of six Mapp and Lucia novels, published between 1920 and 1939. As well as the six novels there’s this short story, published in 1929, so coming between Lucia in London (1927) and Mapp and Lucia (1931). Since it’s only in the latter novel that the two dominant figures of Lucia and Mapp first meet, this story hales from the period when they were still separate entities, each ruling over their own domain, Mrs Emmeline ‘Lucia’ Lucas dominating the village of Riseholme, and Miss Elizabeth Mapp ruling the small coastal town of Tilling.
This story concerns Miss Mapp in Tilling, as yet blissfully unaware that her kingdom was shortly to be invaded and slowly conquered by the clever, strategic genius of Lucia.
Now Miss Mapp’s social dictatorship among the ladies of Tilling had long been paramount…
She has recently returned from the month of August as holiday in Switzerland, full of plans for the autumn season, to the regular:
round of housekeeping, bridge, weekly visits to the workhouse, and intense curiosity as to anything of domestic interest which took place in the strenuous world of this little country town.
After a happy morning painting a watercolour of the landscape she walks home to her house, Mallards, and sees a pantechnicon (i.e. removals) van pulling up outside a house which has been vacant for some time, Suntraps. She’s barely opened the door to her house before the phone rings and she is told it is a trunk call for Tilling 76. Now Miss M’s number is Tilling 67 but she remembers that Suntrap’s number is 67 and so decides to lie and see what happens.
What happens is a remote voice informs her that her ladyship, Lady Deal, will be arriving this afternoon and to make the house ready. When the voice addresses her as ‘Susie’ she realises it’s time to quietly replace the receiver. She reflects that she ought to pass the message on and so runs Tilling 76, passes on the new about her ladyship to the lady who answers the phone, but when the latter refers to her as Jane, again discreetly replaces the receiver.
She has lunch (a winter lettuce – is that all?) then strolls round to the house to watch the unloading continuing. She knocks at the door and hands her card to the lady supervising the unloading, presumably Susie, before strolling off, smug that she knows all about this before any of her rival gossips.
One of whom calls by an hour or so later, Godiva ‘Diva’ Plaistow. We are reminded about her odd shape and manner of locomotion:
Godiva’s round squat little figure trundling down the street from the church in the direction of her house, with those short twinkling steps of hers which so much resembled those of a thrush scudding over the lawn in search of worms.
Diva thinks she is first to tell Miss M the news about the removals van but Mapp is (as we’ve seen) several moves ahead of her in the all-important game of Knowing All The Gossip. She tells a breathless Diva the new tenant is to be a Lady Deal and they both set about ransacking Miss M’s house to find her ancient copy of the Peerage. But hardly have they found it and opened it to Lady Deal than they discover the woman in question was a one-time music hall performer called Helen Herman whose act consisted of being a male impersonator and who Miss Mapp saw on the stage!
Up in smoke go Miss Mapp’s fantasies of being first in with the aristocracy; in fact, to her chagrin, Diva thanks her lucky stars she found this out before she was tempted to hand in her card and thereby come in contact with such a low type of personage – precisely the error Miss Mapp has just showily made!
News of the male impersonator spreads like wildfire and snobbish society decides they must have nothing to do with such a proletarian figure. Nonetheless, Curfew Street which leads up to Suntrap, becomes a popular destination for afternoon strolls (of the incurably curious). It’s only after a few days that Miss Mapp sees a bath chair brought out of the front door and then an elderly lady using sticks emerging and sitting in the chair. She runs down towards the High Street but meets Diva trundling up from it to see her, and they decide to repair to Miss Mapp’s house, to the famous window room, where they can share theories and keep an eye out for further developments.
However, the more closely Diva describes the lady she’s seen, the odder the story becomes. When Miss M saw Helen Herman perform ten or so years ago, she played Romeo and was youthful enough to climb up to Juliet’s balcony. How can she have aged so severely in a decade?
They see the grocer’s boy coming up the hill with a delivery for Suntrap so Miss M nips out and on a pretext gets a glimpse of the packages in his bag which are addressed to a Miss Mackintosh. This information crystallises Diva’s scepticism about Miss Mapp’s whole account, she accuses Miss M of having got it all wrong and the ladies have a falling out.
Instead Diva falls in with the vicar’s wife, Evie Bartlett, and persuades her to accompany her on paying a call to Suntrap to find out the truth. So they are greeted at the door of Suntrap by Susie, clearly the servant, who takes them in to meet old Miss Mackintosh who proceeds to clear everything up.
She explains that Lady Deal’s first name is Florence. She is active in charities and good causes (‘Girl-guides, mothers’ meetings, Primrose League, and now she’s standing for Parliament.’) The old lady in the bath-chair used to be her governess, and Lady Deal has bought this house as a retirement home for her and also so she can pop down from London for breaks.
Then comes the extended comic denouement: Nice old Miss Mackintosh is desperate to know who the strange lady was who came round during the unpacking to hand in her card and then returned a few hours and demanded her card back! What extraordinary behaviour.
Although she’s only just learned about the card giving and taking shenanigans, Diva is able to explain that she and Miss Mapp heard a Lady Deal was moving in and so looked her up in an old edition of the Peerage and discovered she was the male impersonator. Miss Mackintosh is tickled to bits by all this:
Miss Mackintosh waved her arms wildly. ‘Oh, please stop, and let me guess,’ she cried. ‘I shall go crazy with joy if I’m right. It was an old Peerage, and so she found that Lady Deal was Helena Herman—’
All wrong, all old information because, as Miss Mackintosh goes on to explain:
‘That’s the last Lady Deal,’ said Miss Mackintosh. ‘Helena Herman’s Lord Deal died without children and Florence’s Lord Deal, my Lady Deal, succeeded. Cousins.’
How did Miss Mapp find out enough to get the wrong end of the stick? Diva has a brainwave and asks the phone number of Suntrap. When Miss Mackintosh replies ‘Tilling 76’, Diva and Evie both realise what must have happened, the caller mixed it up with Miss Mapp’s number, Tilling 67 (which they both, of course, know).
So the callers from London made a mistake and Miss Mapp took advantage of it but them herself, made a hilarious mistake. Miss Mackintosh is vastly amused by the whole thing, thus showing herself to be a true Tillingite in the making, and can’t wait to tell Lady Florence all about it and – to cap her loveliness – invites Evie and Diva round to play bridge and meet her ladyship. Perfect!
As to Miss Mapp:
‘She’ll find it out by degrees,’ said the ruthless Diva. ‘It will hurt more in bits.’
‘Oh, but she mustn’t be hurt,’ said Miss Mackintosh. ‘She’s too precious, I adore her.’
‘So do we,’ said Diva. ‘But we like her to be found out occasionally. You will, too, when you know her.’
Comment
Thus, on the face of it, is humbuggery comically rewarded! But there is obviously also a vast gay and queer literary sub-text going on here which I am too tired, and too inexpert, to even approach.
Cast
- Miss Elizabeth Mapp
- Godiva ‘Diva’ Plaistow
- Mr Cannick – the grocer
- Thomas, Cannick the grocer’s boy
- Mrs Bartlett – the vicar’s wife
- Miss Mackintosh – the old lady in the bath-chair
- Susie – her servant
Related links
Mapp and Lucia reviews
- Queen Lucia (1920)
- Miss Mapp (1922)
- Lucia in London (1927)
- The Male Impersonator (1929: short story)
- Mapp and Lucia (1931)
- Lucia’s Progress (1935)
- Trouble for Lucia (1939)
Books & Boots 