Lucia Victrix by E. F. Benson Read Free Book Online Page B

said Irene. ‘I know perfectly well from your face that you’ve let it. Otherwise it would be all screwed up.’
    Miss Mapp, though there was no question about her being the social queen of Tilling, sometimes felt that there were ugly Bolshevistic symptoms in the air, when quaint Irene spoke to her like that. And Irene had a dreadful gift of mimicry, which was a very low weapon, but formidable. It was always wise to be polite to mimics.
    ‘Patience, a little patience, dear,’ said Miss Mapp soothingly. ‘If you know I’ve let it, why wait?’
    ‘Because I should like a cocktail,’ said Irene. ‘If you’ll just send for one, you can go on teasing.’
    ‘Well, I’ve let it for August and September,’ said Miss Mapp, preferring to abandon her teasing than give Irene a cocktail. ‘And I’m lucky in my tenant. I never met a sweeter woman than dear Mrs Lucas.’
    ‘Thank God,’ said Diva, drawing up her chair to the still uncleared table. ‘Give me a cup of tea, Elizabeth. I could eat nothing till I knew.’
    ‘How much did you stick her for it? asked Irene.
    ‘Beg your pardon, dear?’ asked Miss Mapp, who could not be expected to understand such a vulgar expression.
    ‘What price did you screw her up to? What’s she got to pay you?’ said Irene impatiently. ‘Damage: dibs.’
    ‘She instantly closed with the price I suggested,’ said MissMapp. ‘I’m not sure, quaint one, that anything beyond that is what might be called your business.’
    ‘I disagree about that,’ said the quaint one. ‘There ought to be a sliding-scale. If you’ve made her pay through the nose, Diva ought to make you pay through the nose for her house, and I ought to make her pay through the nose for mine. Equality, Fraternity, Nosality.’
    Miss Mapp bubbled with disarming laughter and rang the bell for Irene’s cocktail, which might stop her pursuing this subject, for the sliding-scale of twelve, eight and five guineas a week had been the basis of previous calculations. Yet if Lucia so willingly consented to pay more, surely that was nobody’s affair but that of the high contracting parties. Irene, soothed by the prospect of her cocktail, pursued the dangerous topic no further, but sat down at Miss Mapp’s piano and picked out God Save the King, with one uncertain finger. Her cocktail arrived just as she finished it.
    ‘Thank you, dear,’ said Miss Mapp. ‘Sweet music.’
    ‘Cheerio!’ said Irene. ‘Are you charging Lucas anything extra for use of a fine old instrument?’
    Miss Mapp was goaded into a direct and emphatic reply.
    ‘No, darling, I am not,’ she said, ‘as you are so interested in matters that don’t concern you.’
    ‘Well, well, no offence meant,’ said Irene. ‘Thanks for the cocktail. Look in to-morrow between twelve and one at my studio, if you want to see far the greater part of a well-made man. I’ll be off now to cook my supper. Au reservoir.’
    Miss Mapp finished the few strawberries that Diva had spared and sighed.
    ‘Our dear Irene has a very coarse side to her nature, Diva,’ she said. ‘No harm in her, but just common. Sad! Such a contrast to dear Mrs Lucas. So refined: scraps of Italian beautifully pronounced. And so delighted with everything.’
    ‘Ought we to call on her?’ asked Diva. ‘Widow’s mourning, you know.’
    Miss Mapp considered this. One plan would be that she should take Lucia under her wing (provided she was willing to go there), another to let it be known in Tilling (if she wasn’t)that she did not want to be called upon. That would set Tilling’s back up, for if there was one thing it hated it was anything that (in spite of widow’s weeds) might be interpreted into superiority. Though Lucia would only be two months in Tilling, Miss Mapp did not want her to be too popular on her own account, independently. She wanted … she wanted to have Lucia in her pocket, to take her by the hand and show her to Tilling, but to be in control. It all had to be thought