THE SOUL OF MRS. POTTEN
Mrs. Potten was emerging from a shop in Broad Street when she caught
sight of Mr. Bingham, in cap and gown, passing her and called to him. He
stopped and walked a few steps with her, while she informed him that the
proceeds of the Sale had come to ninety-three pounds, ten shillings and
threepence; but this was only in order to find out whether he had heard
of that poor dear Warden's engagement. It was all so very foolish!
"Only that!" said Bingham, who was evidently in ignorance of the event;
"and after I bought a table-cloth, which I find goes badly with my
curtains, and bedroom slippers, that are too small now I've tried them
on. Well, Mrs. Potten, you did your best, anyhow, flinging notes about
all over Christ Church. Was the second note found?"
"The second note?" exclaimed Mrs. Potten. "What d'ye mean?"
"You dropped one note at Christ Church, and you would have lost another
if Harding hadn't discovered that you had given him an extra note and
restored it to Miss Scott. I suppose Miss Scott pretended that it was
she who had been clever enough to rescue the note for you?"
"No, she did not," said Mrs. Potten; and here she paused and remained
silent, for her brain was seething with tumultuous thoughts.
"Well, but for Harding, the Sale would have made a cool ninety-three
pounds, fifteen shillings and threepence. Do you follow me?"
Mrs. Potten did follow him and with much agitation.
"How do you know it was my note and not Miss Scott's own note?" she
asked, and there was in her tone a twang of cunning, for Bingham's
remarks had roused not only the emotional superficies of Mrs. Potten's
nature, but had pierced to the very core where lay the thought of money.
"Because," replied Bingham, "Miss Scott, who was running like a
two-year-old, was not likely to have unfastened your note and fitted one
of her own under it so tightly that Harding, whose mind is quite
accustomed to the solution of simple problems, had to blow 'poof' to
separate them. No, take the blame on yourself, Mrs. Potten, and in
future have a purse-bearer."
Mrs. Potten's mind was in such a state of inward indignation that she
went past the chemist's shop, and was now within a few yards of the
Sheldonian Theatre. She had become forgetful of time and place, and was
muttering to herself--
"What a little baggage--what a little minx!" and other remarks unheard
by Bingham.
"I see you are admiring that semicircle of splendid heads that crown the
palisading of the Sheldonian," said Bingham, as they came up close to
the historic building.
"Admiring them!" exclaimed Mrs. Potten. "They are monstrosities."
"They are perfectly sweet, as ladies say," contradicted Bingham; "we
wouldn't part with them for the world."
"What are they?" demanded Mrs. Potten, trying hard to preserve an
outward calm and discretion.
"Jupiter Tonans--or Plato," said Bingham, "and in progressive stages of
senility."
"Why don't you have handsome heads?" said Mrs. Potten, and she began to
cross the road with Bingham. Bingham was crossing the road because he
was going that way, and Mrs. Potten drifted along with him because she
was too much excited to think out the matter.
"They are handsome," said Bingham.
Mrs. Potten was speechless. Suddenly she discovered that she was
hurrying in the wrong direction, just as if she were running away with
Mr. Bingham. She paused at the curb of the opposite pavement.
"Mr. Bingham," she said, arresting him.
He stopped.
"I must go back," she said. "I quite forgot that my car may be waiting
for me at the chemist's!" and then she fumbled with her bag, and then
looked thoughtfully into Bingham's face as they stood together on the
curb. "Bernard always lunches with me on Sundays," she said; "I shall be
glad to see you any Sunday if you want a walk, and we can talk about the
removal of those heads."
Bingham gave a cordial but elusive reply, and, raising his cap, he
sauntered away eastwards, his gown flying out behind him in the light
autumn wind.
Mrs. Potten re-crossed the road and walked slowly back to the chemist's.
Her car was there waiting for her, and it contained her weekly
groceries, her leg of mutton, and the unbleached calico for the making
of hospital slings which she had bought in Queen's Street, because she
could obtain it there at 4 1/2d. per yard.
She went into the chemist's and bought some patent pills, all the time
thinking hard. She had two witnesses to Gwendolen Scott's having
possession of the note: Mr. Harding and Mr. Bingham; and one witness,
Lady Dashwood, to her having delivered the collar and not the note! All
these witnesses were unconscious of the meaning of the transaction.
She, Mrs. Potten, alone could piece together the evidence and know what
it meant, and it was by a mere chance that she had been able to do this.
If she had not met Mr. Bingham (and she had never met him before in the
street), and if she had not happened to have mentioned the proceeds of
the Sale, she would still be under the impression that the note had been
mislaid.
"And the impertinence of the young woman!" exclaimed Mrs. Potten, as she
paid for her pills. "And she fancies herself in a position of trust, if
you please! She means to figure, if you please, at the head of an
establishment where we send our sons to be kept out of mischief for a
bit! Well, I never heard of anything like it. Why, she'll be tampering
with the bills!"
Mrs. Potten's indignation did not wane as the moments passed, but rather
waxed.
"And her mother is condescending about the engagement! Why," added Mrs.
Potten to herself with emphasis, as she got into her car--"why, if this
had happened with one of my maids, I should have put it into the hands
of the police."
"The Lodgings, King's," she said to the chauffeur. What was she going to
do when she got there?
Mrs. Potten had no intention of bursting into the Lodgings in order to
demand an explanation from Miss Scott. No, thank you, Miss Scott must
wait upon Mrs. Potten. She must come out to Potten End and make her
explanation! But Mrs. Potten was going to the Lodgings merely to ensure
that this would be done on the instant.
"Don't drive in," she called, and getting out of the car she walked into
the court and went up the two shallow steps of the front door and rang
at the bell.
The retrousse nose of Robinson Junior appeared at the opened door. Lady
Dashwood was not at home and was not expected till half-past one. It
was then one o'clock. Mrs. Potten mused for a little and then asked if
she might see Lady Dashwood's maid for a moment. Robinson Junior
suppressed his scornful surprise that any one should want to see Louise,
and ushered Mrs. Potten into the Warden's breakfast-room, and there,
seating herself near the window, she searched for a visiting card and a
pencil. Louise appeared very promptly.
"Madame wishes something?" she remarked as she closed the door behind
her, and stood surveying Mrs. Potten from that distance.
"I do," said Mrs. Potten, taking in Louise's untidy blouse, her plain
features, thick complexion and luminous brown eyes in one comprehensive
glance. "Can you tell me if Miss Scott will be in for luncheon?" Mrs.
Potten spoke French with a strong English accent and much originality of
style.
Yes, Miss Scott was returning to luncheon.
"And do you know if the ladies have afternoon engagements?"
Louise thought they had none, because Lady Dashwood was to be at home to
tea. That she knew for certain, and she added in a voice fraught with
import: "I shall urge Madame to rest after lunch."
"Humph! I see you look after her properly," said Mrs. Potten, beginning
to write on her card with the pencil; "I thought she was looking very
tired when I saw her this morning."
"Tired!" exclaimed Louise; "Madame is always tired in Oxford."
"Relaxing climate," said Mrs. Potten as she wrote.
"And this house does not suit Madame," continued Louise, motionless at
the door.
"The drains wrong, perhaps," said Mrs. Potten, with absolute
indifference.
"I know nothing of drains, Madame," said Louise, "I speak of other
things."
"Sans doute il y a du 'dry rot,'" said Mrs. Potten, looking at what she
had written.
"Ah!" exclaimed Louise, clasping her hands, "Madame has heard; I did not
know his name, but what matter? Ghosts are always ghosts, and my Lady
Dashwood has never been the same since that night, never!"
Mrs. Potten stared but she did not express surprise, she wanted to hear
more without asking for more.
"Madame knows that the ghost comes to bring bad news about the Warden!"
"Bad news!" said Mrs. Potten, and she put her pencil back into her bag
and wondered whether the news of the Warden's engagement had reached the
servants' quarters.
"A disaster," said Louise. "Always a disaster--to Monsieur the Warden.
Madame understands?"
Louise gazed at Mrs. Potten as if she hoped that that lady had
information to give her. But Mrs. Potten had none. She was merely
thinking deeply.
"Well," she said, rising, "I suppose most old houses pretend to have
ghosts. We have one at Potten End, but I have never seen it myself, and,
as far as I know, it does no harm and no good. But Madame didn't see the
ghost you speak of?" and here Mrs. Potten smiled a little satirically.
"It was Miss Scott," said Louise, darkly.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Potten, with a short laugh. "Oh, well!" and she came
towards the maid with the card in her hand. "Now, will you be good
enough to give this to Madame the moment that she returns and say that
it is 'Urgent,' d'une importance extreme."
"Well," said Mrs. Potten to herself, as she walked through the court and
gained the street, "and I should think it _was_ a disaster for a quiet,
respectable Warden of an Oxford college to marry a person of the Scott
type."
As to Louise, when she had closed the front door on Mrs. Potten's
retreating figure, she gazed hard at the card in her hand. The writing
was as follows:--
"Dear Lena,
"Can Miss Scott come to see me this afternoon without fail? Very
kindly allow her to come early.
"M. P."
It did not contain anything more.
Now, Mrs. Potten really believed in ghosts, but she thought of them as
dreary, uninteresting intruders on the world's history. There was
Hamlet's father's ghost that spoke at such length, and there was the
spirit that made Abraham's hair stand on end as it passed before him,
and then there was the ghost of Samuel that appeared to Saul and
prophesied evil. But of all ghosts, the one that Mrs. Potten thought
most dismal, was the ghost of the man-servant who came out from a
mansion, full of light and music, one winter night on a Devon bye-road.
There he stood in the snow directing the lost travellers to the nearest
inn, and (this was what struck Mrs. Potten's soul to the core) the
half-crown (an actual precious piece of money) that was dropped into his
hand--fell through the palm--on to the snow--and so the travellers knew
that they had spoken to a spirit, and were leaving behind them a ghostly
house with ghostly lights and the merriment of the dead.
Mrs. Potten's mind worked in columns, and had she been calm and happy
she would have spent the time returning to Potten End in completing the
list of ghosts she was acquainted with; but she was excited and full of
tumultuous thoughts.
There was, indeed, in Mrs. Potten's soul the strife of various passions:
there was the desire to act in a high-handed, swift Potten manner, the
desire to pursue and flatten any one who invaded the Potten preserves.
There was the desire to put her heavy individual foot upon a specimen of
the modern female who betrays the honour and the interest of her own
class. There was also the general desire to show a fool that she was a
fool. There was also the desire to snub Belinda Scott; and lastly, but
not least, there was the desire to put her knife into any giddy young
girl who had thrown her net over the Warden.
These desires fought tooth and nail with a certain dogged sentiment of
fear--a fear of the Warden. If he was deeply in love, what might he do
or not do? Would he put Potten End under a ban? Would he excommunicate
her, Marian Potten?
And so Mrs. Potten's mind whirled.
At a certain shop in the High there was May Dashwood, looking at a
window full of books. No doubt Lady Dashwood was inside, or, more
probably, in the shop next door.
An inspiration came to Mrs. Potten. Was the Warden so very much in love?
Belinda Scott laid great stress on his being very much in love, and the
whole thing being a surprise! Belinda Scott was a liar! And the little
daughter who could stoop to thieving ten shillings at a bazaar, might
well have been put on by her mother to some equally noxious behaviour to
the Warden. She might have lain in wait for him behind doors and on
staircases; she might----Mrs. Potten stopped her car, got out of it, and
went behind May Dashwood and whispered in her ear.
May turned, her eyebrows very much raised, and listened to what Mrs.
Potten had to say.
Great urgency made Mrs. Potten as astute as a French detective.
"I'm quite sorry," she whispered, "to find that your Aunt Lena seems
worried about the engagement. Now why on earth, oh why, did the Warden
run himself into an engagement with a girl he doesn't really care
about?"
This question was a master-stroke. There was no getting out of this for
May Dashwood. Mrs. Potten clapped her hand over her mouth and drew in a
breath. Then she listened breathless for the answer. The answer must
either be: "But he _does_ really care about her," or something evasive.
Not only Mrs. Potten's emotional superficies but her core of flint
feared the emphatic answer, and yearned for an evasive one. What was it
to be?
May's face had suddenly blanched. Had her Aunt Lena told? No--surely
not; and yet Mrs. Potten seemed to _know_.
"How can I tell, Mrs. Potten?" said May, unsteadily. "I----"
"Evasive!" said Mrs. Potten to herself triumphantly.
"Never mind! things do happen," she said, interrupting May. "I suppose,
at any rate, he has to make the best of it, now it's done."
Mrs. Potten was afraid that she was now going too far, and she swiftly
turned the subject sideways before May had time to think out a reply.
"Tell your Aunt Lena that I expect Gwendolen, without fail, after lunch.
Please tell her; so kind of you! Good-bye, good-bye," and Mrs. Potten
got fiercely into her car.
"Well, I never!" she said, and she said it over and over again. A cloud
of thoughts seemed to float with her as the car skimmed along the road,
and through that cloud seemed to peer at her, though somewhat dimly, the
"beaux yeux" of the Warden of King's.
"I think I shall," said Mrs. Potten, "I think I shall; but I shall make
certain first--absolutely certain--first."