Tilling Quotes

“But why did she come back and take her card away?" asked Miss Mackintosh. "I told Florence that Miss Mapp had heard something dreadful about her. And how did she know that Lady Deal was coming here at all? The house was taken in my name."

"That's just what we all long to find out," said Diva eagerly. "She said that somebody in London told her."

"But who?" asked Miss Mackintosh. "Florence only settled to come at lunch time that day, and she told her butler to ring up Susie and say she would be arriving."

Diva's eyes grew round and bright with inductive reasoning.

"I believe we're on the right tack," she said. "Could she have received Lady Deal's butler's message, do you think? What's your number?"

"Tilling 76," said Miss Mackintosh.

Evie gave three ecstatic little squeaks.

"Oh, that's it, that's it!" she said. "Elizabeth Mapp is Tilling 67. So careless of them, but all quite plain. And she did hear it from somebody in London. Quite true, and so dreadfully false and misleading, and so like her. Isn't it, Diva? Well, it does serve her right to be found out."

Miss Mackintosh was evidently a true Tillingite.

"How marvellous!" she said.”
― E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp

“Miss Mackintosh waved her arms wildly.

"Oh, please stop, and let me guess," she cried. "I shall go crazy with joy if I'm right. It was an old Peerage, and so she found that Lady Deal was Helena Herman--"

"Whom she had seen ten years ago at a music hall as a male impersonator," cried Diva.

"And didn't want to know her," interrupted Miss Mackintosh.

"Yes, that's it, but that is not all. I hope you won't mind, but it's too rich. She saw you this morning coming out of your house in your bath-chair, and was quite sure that you were that Lady Deal."

The three ladies rocked with laughter. Sometimes one recovered, and sometimes two, but they were re-infected by the third, and so they went on, solo and chorus, and duet and chorus, till exhaustion set in.

"But there's still a mystery," said Diva at length, wiping her eyes. "Why did the Peerage say that Lady Deal was Helena Herman?"

"Oh, that's the last Lady Deal," said Miss Mackintosh. "Helena Herman's Lord Deal died without children and Florence's Lord Deal, my Lady Deal, succeeded. Cousins."

"If that isn't a lesson for Elizabeth Mapp," said Diva. "Better go to the expense of a new Peerage than make such a muddle. But what a long call we've made. We must go.”
― E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp

“Georgie paused on the threshold for a moment as if hesitant to enter the habitation of such a perjurer lest it should be struck by lightning.”
― Tom Holt, Lucia Triumphant

“You mean it's to be peace between you and Elizabeth until after the Tapestry?" cried Georgie, horrified. The prospect of a cessation of hostilities was appalling, for this warfare provided him with the excitement that no other occupation could hope to offer. "Isn't that a bit drastic?”
― Tom Holt, Lucia Triumphant