The Complete Mapp & Lucia by E. F. Benson

Author:E. F. Benson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 2010-02-20T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2

They arrived at Tilling in the middle of the afternoon, entering it from the long level road that ran across the reclaimed marshland to the west. Blue was the sky overhead, complete with larks and small white clouds; the town lay basking in the hot June sunshine, and its narrow streets abounded in red-brick houses with tiled roofs, that shouted Queen Anne and George I in Lucia’s enraptured ears, and made Georgie’s fingers itch for his sketching-tools.

‘Dear Georgie, perfectly enchanting!’ exclaimed Lucia. ‘I declare I feel at home already. Look, there’s another lovely house. We must just drive to the end of this street, and then we’ll inquire where Mallards is. The people, too, I like their looks. Faces full of interest. It’s as if they expected us.’

The car had stopped to allow a dray to turn into the High Street from a steep cobbled way leading to the top of the hill. On the pavement at the corner was standing quite a group of Tillingites: there was a clergyman, there was a little round bustling woman dressed in a purple frock covered with pink roses which looked as if they were made of chintz, there was a large military-looking man with a couple of golf-clubs in his hand, and there was a hatless girl with hair closely cropped, dressed in a fisherman’s jersey and knickerbockers, who spat very neatly in the roadway.

‘We must ask where the house is,’ said Lucia, leaning out of the window of her Rolls-Royce. ‘I wonder if you would be so good as to tell me—’

The clergyman sprang forward.

‘It’ll be Miss Mapp’s house you’re seeking,’ he said in a broad Scotch accent. ‘Straight up the street, to yon corner, and it’s right there is Mistress Mapp’s house.’

The odd-looking girl gave a short hoot of laughter, and they all stared at Lucia. The car turned with difficulty and danced slowly up the steep narrow street.

‘Georgie, he told me where it was before I asked,’ said Lucia. ‘It must be known in Tilling that I was coming. What a strange accent that clergyman had! A little tipsy, do you think, or only Scotch? The others too! All most interesting and unusual. Gracious, here’s an enormous car coming down. Can we pass, do you think?’

By means of both cars driving on to the pavement on each side of the cobbled roadway, the passage was effected, and Lucia caught sight of a large woman inside the other, who in spite of the heat of the day wore a magnificent sable cloak. A small man with a monocle sat eclipsed by her side. Then, with glimpses of more red-brick houses to right and left, the car stopped at the top of the street opposite a very dignified door. Straight in front where the street turned at a right angle, a room with a large bow-window faced them; this, though slightly separate from the house, seemed to belong to it. Georgie thought he saw a woman’s face peering out between half-drawn curtains, but it whisked itself away.

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