Edward F Benson

Miss Mapp Edward F Benson

She sat, on this hot July morning, like a large bird of prey at the very convenient window of hergarden-room, the ample bow of which formed a strategical point of high value. This garden-room, solid and spacious, was built at right angles to the front of her house, and looked straight down thevery interesting street which debouched at its lower end into the High Street of Tilling. Exactlyopposite her front door the road turned sharply, so that as she looked out from this projectingwindow, her own house was at right angles on her left, the street in question plunged steeplydownwards in front of her, and to her right she commanded an uninterrupted view of its furthercourse which terminated in the disused graveyard surrounding the big Norman church. Anything ofinterest about the church, however, could be gleaned from a guide-book, and Miss Mapp did notoccupy herself much with such coldly venerable topics. Far more to her mind was the fact thatbetween the church and her strategic window was the cottage in which her gardener lived, and shecould thus see, when not otherwise engaged, whether he went home before twelve, or failed to getback to her garden again by one, for he had to cross the street in front of her very eyes. Similarly shecould observe whether any of his abandoned family ever came out from her garden door weightedwith suspicious baskets, which might contain smuggled vegetables. Only yesterday morning she hadhurried forth with a dangerous smile to intercept a laden urchin, with inquiries as to what was in"that nice basket." On that occasion that nice basket had proved to contain a strawberry net whichwas being sent for repair to the gardener's wife; so there was nothing more to be done except verifyits return. This she did from a side window of the garden-room which commanded the strawberrybeds; she could sit quite close to that, for it was screened by the large-leaved branches of a fig-treeand she could spy unseen