ly happen to be at that
sharp corner outside the station where every motor had to go slow, on
the arrival of the 4.15, it would never do to risk being seen there
again precisely at 6.45. Mrs. Poppit, shameless in her snobbery, would
no doubt be at the station with her Order on at both these hours, if the
arrival did not take place by the first train, and Isabel would be
prancing by or behind her, and, in fact, dreadful though it was to
contemplate, all Tilling, she reluctantly believed, would be hanging
about.... Then an idea struck her, so glorious, that she put the
uprooted love-in-a-mist in the weed-basket, instead of planting it
again, and went quickly indoors, up to the attics, and from there
popped--really popped, so tight was the fit--through a trap-door on to
the roof. Yes: the station was plainly visible, and if the 4.15 was the
favoured train, there would certainly be a motor from Ardingly Park
waiting there in good time for its arrival. From the house-roof she
could ascertain that, and she would then have time to trip down the hill
and get to her coal merchant's at that sharp corner outside the station,
and ask, rather peremptorily, when the coke for her central heating
might be expected. It was due now, and though it would be unfortunate if
it arrived before Saturday, it was quite easy to smile away her
peremptory manner, and say that Withers had not told her. Miss Mapp
hated prevarication, but a major force sometimes came along.... But if
no motors from Ardingly Park were in waiting for the 4.15 (as spied from
her house-roof), she need not risk being seen in the neighbourhood of
the station, but would again make observations some few minutes before
the 6.45 was due. There was positively no other train by which He could
come....

The next day or two saw no traceable developments in the situation, but
Miss Mapp's trained sense told her that there was underground work of
some kind going on: she seemed to hear faint hollow taps and muffled
knockings, and, so to speak, the silence of some unusual pregnancy. Up
and down the High Street she observed short whispered conversations
going on between her friends, which broke off on her approach. This only
confirmed her view that these secret colloquies were connected with
Saturday afternoon, for it was not to be expected that, after her
freezing reception of the news, any projected snobbishness should be
confided to her, and though she would have liked to know what Div