‘I wish I hadn’t given her my picture of the Landgate,’ said he. ‘It was one of my best. But aren’t you going to tell me all about your interview? Properly, I mean: everything.’

‘Not worth speaking of,’ said Lucia. ‘She asked me if I would like to have a menagerie and keep tigers and sharks in the garden-room. That sort of thing. Mere raving. Come out, Georgie. I want to do a little shopping. Coplen told me there were some excellent greengages from the garden which he was taking down to Twistevant’s.’

It was the hour when the collective social life of Tilling was at its briskest. The events of the evening before, tea parties and games of bridge had become known and were under discussion, as the ladies of the place with their baskets on their arms collided with each other as they popped in and out of shops and obstructed the pavements. Many parcels were being left at Wasters which Miss Mapp now occupied, for jumble sales on behalf of deserving objects were justly popular, since everybody had a lot of junk in their houses, which they could not bear to throw away, but for which they had no earthly use. Diva had already been back from Taormina to her own house (as Elizabeth to hers) and had disinterred from a cupboard of rubbish a pair of tongs, the claws of which twisted round if you tried to pick up a lump of coal and dropped it on the carpet, but which were otherwise perfect. Then there was a scuttle which had a hole in the bottom, through which coal dust softly dribbled, and a candlestick which had lost one of its feet, and a glass inkstand once handsome, but now cracked. These treasures, handsome donations to a jumble sale, but otherwise of no particular value, she carried to her own hall, where donors were requested to leave their offerings, and she learned from Withers, Miss Mapp’s parlourmaid, the disagreeable news that the jumble sale was to be held here. The thought revolted her; all the ragtag and bobtail of Tilling would come wandering about her house, soiling her carpets and smudging her walls. At this moment Miss Mapp herself came in carrying the tea kettle and the boot-jack and the other things. She had already thought of half a dozen withering retorts she might have made to Lucia.

‘Elizabeth, this will never do,’ said Diva. ‘I can’t have the jumble sale held here. They’ll make a dreadful mess of the place.’

‘Oh no, dear,’ said Miss Mapp, with searing memories of a recent interview in her mind. ‘The people will only come into your hall where you see there’s no carpet, and make their purchases. What a beautiful pair of tongs! For my sale? Fancy! Thank you, dear Diva.’