By the time that the second lesson was being read the sun had shifted from Miss Mapp’s face, and enabled her to see how ghastly dear Evie looked when focussed under the blue robe of Jonah, who was climbing out of the whale. She had had her disappointments to contend with, for the Contessa had never really grasped at all who she was. Sometimes she mistook her for Irene, sometimes she did not seem to see her, but never had she appeared fully to identify her as Mr. Bartlett’s wee wifey. But then, dear Evie was very insignificant even when she squeaked her loudest. Her best friends, among whom was Miss Mapp, would not deny that. She had been wilted by non-recognition; she would recover again, now that they were all left to themselves.
The sermon contained many repetitions and a quantity of split infinitives. The Padre had once openly stated that Shakespeare was good enough for him, and that Shakespeare was guilty of many split infinitives. On that occasion there had nearly been a breach between him and Mistress Mapp, for Mistress Mapp had said, “But then you are not Shakespeare, dear Padre.” And he could find nothing better to reply than “Hoots!”… There was nothing more of interest about the sermon.
At the end of the service Miss Mapp lingered in the church looking at the lovely decorations of holly and laurel, for which she was so largely responsible, until her instinct assured her that everybody else had shaken hands and was wondering what to say next about Christmas. Then, just then, she hurried out.
They were all there, and she came like the late and honoured guest (Poor Diva).
“Diva, darling,” she said. “Merry Christmas! And Evie! And the Padre. Padre dear, thank you for your sermon! And Major Benjy! Merry Christmas, Major Benjy. What a small company we are, but not the less Christmassy. No Mr. Wyse, no Susan, no Isabel. Oh, and no Captain Puffin. Not quite well again, Major Benjy? Tell me about him. Those dreadful fits of dizziness. So hard to understand.”
She beautifully succeeded in detaching the Major from the rest. With the peace that had descended on Tilling, she had forgiven him for having been made a fool of by the Contessa.
“I’m anxious about my friend Puffin,” he said. “Not at all up to the mark. Most depressed. I told him he had no business to be depressed. It’s selfish to be depressed, I said. If we were all depressed it would be a dreary world, Miss Elizabeth. He’s sent for the doctor. I was to have had a round of golf with Puffin this afternoon, but he doesn’t feel up to it. It would have done him much more good than a host of doctors.”
“Oh, I wish I could play golf, and not disappoint you of your round, Major Benjy,” said she.
Major Benjy seemed rather to recoil from the thought. He did not profess, at any rate, any sympathetic regret.
“And we were going to have had our Christmas dinner together to-night,” he said, “and spend a jolly evening afterwards.”