MISS POTTS COMES TO TEA
Loveday had been gone more than a week, Geoffrey was nearly well again,
and Priscilla was on the mend--the dreadful pain in her head had almost
left her, so had her other aches and bruises, but the broken arm
bothered her a good deal, and she was very weak and languid, so that
it was still necessary that she should be kept very quiet and not be
allowed to exert herself.
She had reached the stage, though, when it becomes tiresome to keep
still; when one wants to do things, yet feels one can’t; or others
want one to do things, and one feels one cannot possibly do them, and
altogether one is cross and teasy without knowing why.
To read made her head ache, and it was tiresome to hold up a book with
only one hand, and to have none to turn the pages with; neither could
she very well play with her dolls, or her bricks, or anything with but
one hand. Her mother read to her sometimes, and talked to her; but,
of course, she could not do so all the time, and Priscilla would have
grown tired even if she could.
“Mother,” she said one day, after every one had tried to think of
something to amuse her, “I know what I would like very, very much
indeed!”
“Well, dear, tell me what it is?”
“I would like to ask Miss Potts to come and see me. I like her _so_
much, and I think she must miss me, because I often went in to talk to
her to cheer her up after I knew she was an ‘only’!”
“Very well, darling; I am going out presently, and I will ask her. I
don’t quite know, though, how she could manage to leave her shop.”
“I don’t think it would matter much if she did--not if she came while
the children are in school, ’cause there isn’t any one else to go and
buy much--except on Saturdays.”
“I see. Well, I will go and talk to her about it, and see what she has
to say.”
Priscilla had always felt drawn to Miss Potts, the quiet, lonely woman
who lived in a world of toys now, yet looked as though she had never
been a child or played with any; and ever since Miss Potts had told her
she was alone in the world, Priscilla had had quite a motherly feeling
for her. She felt quite excited and pleased at the prospect of her
visitor.
She was so pleased, that she did not know how to wait until her mother
came back with the answer to her message; and then she wished, oh so
much, that she had asked if Miss Potts should be invited to tea with
her. Never mind, she decided, she would ask mother that when she came
back with her news. This thought comforted and soothed her so much that
she was able to lie still more contentedly, and wait, and while she
was waiting, her thoughts flew to Loveday. She tried to picture what
she would be doing at that moment. Loveday was not, of course, able
to write much, for she was very young, and she had only just begun to
write real letters; but Bessie had written a good deal about her and
Aaron, and the fun they had; and mother had told her all she possibly
could about the place, and the house, and the sea, and shops, and the
station and everything else she could think of, and now Priscilla was
looking forward to the time when she and Geoffrey would go down to
Porthcallis and join Loveday.
She was just picturing to herself the journey down, and Loveday waiting
for them on the platform, when she heard the front door opened and
closed again.
“Mother must have got back already!” she cried joyfully. “I hope Miss
Potts can come.”
Then she heard footsteps, and a moment later the door opened, and in
came mother, followed by Miss Potts herself! Priscilla could scarcely
believe her eyes.
“Here she is!” cried Mrs. Carlyon. “Here is your longed-for visitor. I
would not let her stay even to put on her best bonnet, or her mantle,
or anything.”
“No; oh dear, no! I don’t know what a sight I am looking, I am sure!”
said Miss Potts nervously. “But your dear ma whisked me off, so I’d no
time to change my frock or do anything but pop on my old second-best
bonnet and shawl. I hope you’ll excuse me----”
Poor Miss Potts chattered on volubly, not because she really minded
much, but because she was shy and nervous, and sometimes shy and
nervous people feel that they must keep on saying something.
Priscilla put out her hand to clasp Miss Potts’s hand, and then put up
her face to be kissed. The tears came into Miss Potts’s faded, tired
eyes as she stooped and kissed her.
“I think you are looking--oh, ever so nice!” said Priscilla warmly. “I
like you in that bonnet better than any. I think it suits you better.”
“Do you really now, missie?” said Miss Potts, evidently relieved and
pleased. “And how are you, dearie? Are you better?”
“Oh yes, thank you,” said Priscilla--“ever so much! I think I shall be
quite well soon, and then we are going to Porthcallis.”
“Dear, dear,” cried Miss Potts, “that will be nice. Nobody could help
getting well down there in the sunshine and sea-breezes.”
“Do you like the sea?” asked Priscilla. “Did you ever stay by it when
you were a little girl?”
“Indeed, I did,” said Miss Potts. “I was born by it, and grew up by it
till I was turned twenty.”
“You were born by the sea!” cried Priscilla. “Oh, how lovely--and I
never knew it!”
Miss Potts at once became more interesting than ever. Priscilla tried
to picture her digging in the sands and wading through the pools.
“But how could you bear to come away?” she cried. “I am sure I should
never leave the sea if I could help it!”
“Ah, my dear, it all depends!” said Miss Potts, with a sad shake of the
head. “I haven’t set eyes on the sea since I left it, and I--I hope I
never do again. I couldn’t bear it, even now.”
“Oh, how sad!” said Priscilla, looking at her with wide eyes full of
sympathetic interest. “Did your little brothers and sisters live there
too?” she asked gently.
“Yes, missie, and died there,” said Miss Potts sadly. “Every one of us
but mother and me; that’s why I’ve never looked on it since. To me it
is like a great, sly, deceitful monster, always sighing and moaning for
somebody, or foaming and storming in rage. We came away, mother and me,
after the last was drowned; we couldn’t bear it any longer.”
“Poor Miss Potts!” said little Priscilla, laying her hand on Miss
Potts’s worn ones, moving so restlessly in her lap.
Mrs. Carlyon had gone away and left them together, and Miss Potts had
dropped into a chair close to Priscilla’s sofa.
“You don’t think the sea will roar for Loveday, and swallow her up, do
you?” asked Priscilla, in a very anxious voice.
“Oh no, my dear; Porthcallis is a very safe place!” said Miss Potts
emphatically. “P’r’aps I shouldn’t have told you anything about--about
my experience. But where we lived it was very wild and rocky, and my
folk were all seafaring; ’twas their work to go to sea. Out of all my
family that lies in the burying-ground, only two of them are men; all
the rest of our men-folk lies at the bottom of the sea.”
“But you had sisters, hadn’t you, Miss Potts?”
“Yes, dear, two; but the sea had them as well. One of them, Annie--she
was the youngest--was out shrimping by herself one day, when the tide
caught her and carried her out. Hettie saw her, and ran into the sea
to save her, but----”
“Yes?” whispered Priscilla softly, her eyes full of tears. “Couldn’t
she reach her?”
“Yes, she reached her. Father, coming home that night from the fishing,
found them clasped together, and brought them home,” said poor Miss
Potts. “I never saw a smile on his face from that day till just a year
later, when the sea claimed him too.”
“Oh, how dreadful! I shall never like the sea again,” said Priscilla,
wiping away her tears. “I don’t wonder you came away. Did you come
straight to Trelint?”
“Yes,” said Miss Potts more cheerfully; “and I felt at home here at
once. I shouldn’t care to live anywhere else now.”
“Neither should I,” said Priscilla. “I love home, and Trelint, and--oh,
everything; and I would rather live here than by the sea, after all.”
Mrs. Carlyon opened the door, and put her head in.
“Alma is going to bring you some tea presently,” she said brightly.
“Miss Potts said she could stay and have some with you. I am sorry to
say I have to go out, but I know you will take care of each other.
Good-bye, darling, for the time.”
Priscilla beamed with pleasure.
“That is just what I was wanting. I am so glad you can stay, Miss
Potts. I don’t s’pose any one will go to the shop, do you?”
She did not for a moment mean to be rude or unkind.
“No, I expect not,” said Miss Potts a little sadly.
But in a moment or two the door opened again, and in walked Geoffrey.
At sight of Miss Potts he drew up, and stepped back towards the door as
though thunderstruck.
“Ah!” he cried, in a hollow, melodramatic voice, “here she is! False
woman, I have found you. For ten minutes and more have I been kicking
your door with my noble toes----”
Miss Potts groaned.
“And the paint but just dry!” she murmured.
“But no answer could I get,” went on Geoffrey, “and at last”--lowering
his voice and continuing in a tragic whisper--“at last I dropped
my ha’penny back into my pocket and came away. ‘I must lay it out
elsewhere,’ I moaned. But when I reached Ma Tickell’s shop, Pa Tickell
was behind the door, and in his eye I read that he was going to request
me to say my ‘twelve times’ backwards, and I knew he would not believe
that my illness alone had made me forget it, so I crossed over and
gazed in sadly at Ma Wall’s, but Ma Wall looked at me so scornfully
that I came home; and here I find you gossip, gossip, gossip, and my
ha’penny burning a hole in my pocket all the time. You know, Miss
Potts, it is not the way to do business.”
“I know,” said Miss Potts, laughing; “but if you can tell me what you
wanted particularly I’ll send it up as soon as I get home.”
“I couldn’t,” said Geoffrey solemnly; “I must see things before I can
lay out my money to the best advantage.”
“Well, I promise not to be very long, Master Geoffrey, and then you
shall go back with me, if you will, and choose what you like.”
“What is this nice little parcel?” asked Geoffrey, touching one that
had been lying on the table ever since Miss Potts came in.
“Oh,” cried Miss Potts, jumping up with a little scream--“oh, how
foolish of me! Why, that’s something I brought for Miss Priscilla, if
she’ll accept it; and with talking so much, and being so glad to see
her, it had clean gone out of my head;” and she placed the nice-looking
little parcel in Priscilla’s hands.
“Well,” exclaimed Geoffrey, pretending to be deeply hurt, “I think you
might have thought of my feelings, and waited till I had gone away. I
felt certain it was for me, and now----”
Poor Miss Potts looked quite troubled, but Priscilla’s joyful cry rang
out before she could speak.
“Oh, how lovely! Oh, you dear, kind Miss Potts! Look, Geoffrey; we can
both use it. Isn’t it lovely?” and Priscilla held out a box of paints,
just such another as they had bought for Loveday. “And they are _sans
poison_, too.”
“Good!” cried Geoffrey. “Now I’ll be able to paint for you while you
look on. Miss Potts, you _are_ a dear; you understand a fellow’s
feelings before he understands them himself.”
Priscilla leaned up to kiss her thanks.
“I wonder how you always know exactly what people want?” she said
gravely.
“P’r’aps it’s through my having a pretty good memory,” said Miss
Potts, flushing and smiling with pleasure. “I seem able to remember
what I used to think I’d like when I was little myself.”
“And then, were you very glad--as glad as I am--when you got what you’d
been thinking about?” asked Priscilla.
“I never got it, my dear,” said Miss Potts; “’twas all in my thoughts,
and never got beyond. But I had a fine lot of pleasure that way; ’twas
almost as good as having the things themselves, I think.”
“Oh no, not quite,” said Priscilla, turning to her paint-box again.
Then Nurse came in with the tea, and laid it on a table close to
Priscilla’s sofa. Miss Potts seemed rather nervous and fluttery at
having tea there with the children, but very pleased; and Nurse smiled
on her, and admired the paint-box, and brought in some especial cakes,
because she remembered Miss Potts liked them, and everything and
everybody was as nice as nice could be.
It was a beautiful tea that they had--at least, to them it seemed so,
and Miss Potts often afterwards spoke of it, and sat and thought about
it in the long, quiet evenings she spent alone in the dark little
parlour behind her shop. They did not hurry over the meal--in fact,
they lingered so long that Mrs. Carlyon returned before they had done,
and presently the carriage drove up, bringing back Dr. Carlyon from his
afternoon rounds.
When Mrs. Carlyon stooped over her little daughter to kiss her, Prissy
put her one arm round her mother’s neck and drew her face down close.
She knew it was not polite to whisper in company, but she wanted
_very_ much to ask a very, very important question, and she would have
no other opportunity; and as Miss Potts was talking to Geoffrey, and
Nurse was rattling the tea-things, she thought no one would notice that
she was doing more than return her mother’s kiss.
Mrs. Carlyon quickly heard the whispered request, and, going out of the
room under the pretence of removing her hat, soon returned with a thin,
large envelope, which she slipped under Priscilla’s sofa-pillow. Then
Miss Potts got up to go.
“I hope you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Carlyon, for staying so long. I didn’t
mean to be more than a minute, and I’ve been the best part of two
hours.”
She went over to Priscilla to say “Good-bye.” It was quite an ordeal to
her to make her farewells and leave the room under the eyes of so many.
She wanted to express her gratitude, but she was afraid of saying too
much; she was also afraid of saying too little and seeming ungrateful.
“Good-bye, Miss Priscilla,” she said. “I--I hope you will soon be well
and able to run about again.”
“Thank you,” said Priscilla politely. She was rather nervous and
excited too, and her eyes were bright and eager. “I shall come to see
you before I go to Porthcallis, and--and here is something I’ve got for
you, but you mustn’t look at it until you get home. It is something
to keep you from feeling quite so lonely when you are in your little
parlour by yourself after the shop is shut.”
“Thank you, missie, I am sure,” said Miss Potts gratefully.
And whether she guessed what was in the packet no one ever knew, but
she seemed very pleased and overcome. And when the poor lonely woman
got back, as Priscilla said, to her lonely parlour behind the closed
shop, and, opening the envelope, looked on the three bright faces in
the photograph, her tears really did overflow--tears of pleasure and
gratitude for the beautiful photograph, but most of all for the kind
thought and affection which had prompted the gift.
“Dear little lady,” she said, gazing affectionately at Priscilla’s
eager, serious face and wondering eyes; “she’s got a heart of gold;
while as for that dear boy, why, I love every hair of his head and
every tone of his voice, and the more he tries to tease me the more I
love him, I think; and as for little Miss Loveday, why, no one could
help loving her if one tried to.”