“Well, well,” said the postmistress, recovering herself with the speed of one well practiced in mild deception. “If it isn’t Miss Blythe.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Potts. Anything to collect?”
“I’ll just have a look now, shall I?”
The very notion that Mrs. Potts wasn’t intimately acquainted with every piece of correspondence that had come or gone that day was laughable, but Percy played along. “Why, thank you,” she said, as the postmistress repaired to the boxes on the back desk.
After much officious riffling, Mrs. Potts pulled free a small clutch of assorted envelopes and held them aloft. “Here we are then,” she said, making a triumphant return to the counter. “There’s a parcel for Miss Juniper—from your young Londoner, by the looks; happy to be back home, is she, young Meredith?” Percy nodded impatiently as Mrs. Potts continued. “A letter hand-addressed to yourself and one for Miss Saffy alone, typed.”
“Excellent. One hardly needs bother reading them.”
Mrs. Potts lined the letters up neatly on the countertop but didn’t release them. “I trust all is well up at the castle,” she said, with rather more feeling than such an innocuous query seemed to warrant.
“Very well, thank you. Now if I—”
“Indeed, I hear congratulations are in order.”
Percy let out an exasperated sigh. “Congratulations?”
“Wedding bells,” said Mrs. Potts, in that irksome manner she’d perfected, managing both to crow at her ill-gained knowledge while greedily digging for more. “Up at the castle,” she repeated.
“I thank you kindly, Mrs. Potts, but alas I’m no more engaged today than I was yesterday.”
The postmistress stood a while computing, before breaking into pealing laughter. “Oh! But you are a one, Miss Blythe! No more engaged today than yesterday—I must remember that.” After much mirth she sobered, pulling a small lace-trimmed handkerchief from her skirt pocket to dab beneath her eyes. “But of course,” she said between blots, “I never meantyou.”
Percy feigned surprise. “No?”
“Oh no, for heaven’s sake, not you or Miss Saffy. I know neither of you have any plans to leave us, bless you both.” She wiped her cheeks once more. “It was Miss Juniper I was speaking of.”
Percy couldn’t help but notice the way her little sister’s name crackled on the gossip’s lips. There was electricity in the very sounds, and Mrs. Potts a natural conductor. People had always liked to talk about Juniper, even when she was a girl. The little sister had done nothing to help matters; a child with a habit of blacking out at times of excitement tended to lower people’s voices and get them talking about gifts and curses. So it was throughout her childhood, that no matter what strange or unaccountable situation arose in the village—the curious disappearance of Mrs. Fleming’s laundry, the consequent outfitting of Farmer Jacob’s scarecrow in bloomers, an outbreak of mumps—just as surely as bees were drawn to honey, loose talk turned itself eventually to Juniper.
“Miss Juniper and a certain young fellow?” Mrs. Potts pressed. “I hear there’ve been quite some preparations up at the castle? A fellow she met in London?”
The very notion was preposterous. Juniper’s destiny lay elsewhere than marriage: it was poetry that made her little sister’s heart sing. Percy considered having fun with Mrs. Potts’s eager attention, but a glance at the wall clock made her think better of it. A sensible decision: the last thing she needed was to be drawn into a discussion about Juniper’s removal to London. The chance was all too real that Percy might inadvertently reveal the trouble Juniper’s escapade had caused at the castle. Pride would never allow such a thing. “It’s true that we’re having a guest to dinner, Mrs. Potts, but although it is ahe,he is nobody’s suitor. Merely an acquaintance from London.”
“An acquaintance?”
“That is all.”
Mrs. Potts’s eyes narrowed. “Not a wedding then?”
“No.”
“Because I heard it on good authority that there’s been both a proposal and an acceptance.”
It was no secret that Mrs. Potts’s “good authority” was obtained by careful monitoring of letters and telephone calls, the details of which were then cross-referenced against a healthy catalogue of local gossip. Though Percy didn’t go so far as to suspect the woman of steaming envelopes open before sending them on their merry way, there were those in the village who did. In this case, however, there had been very little mail to steam (and not of the sort to get Mrs. Potts excited, Meredith being Juniper’s only correspondent) just as there was no truth to the rumor. “I believe I would know if that were the case, Mrs. Potts,” she said. “Rest assured, it’s just a dinner.”
“Aspecialdinner?”
“Oh, but aren’t they all at a time like this?” said Percy breezily. “One never knows when one might be sitting down to eat one’s last.” She plucked the letters from the postmistress’s hand and as she did so spied the cut-glass jars that had once stood on the counter. The acid drops and butterscotch were all but gone, but a small, rather sad pile of Edinburgh rock had solidified in the base of one. Percy couldn’t stand Edinburgh rock, but it was Juniper’s favorite. “I’ll take what you have left of the rock, if you don’t mind.”
With a sour expression, Mrs. Potts broke the mass free from the jar’s glass base and scooped it into a brown paper bag. “That’ll be sixpence.”
“Why, Mrs. Potts,” said Percy, inspecting the small, sugary bag, “if we weren’t such firm friends, I’d suspect you of trying to fleece me.”
Outrage suffused the postmistress’s face as she spluttered a denial.
“I’m joking, of course, Mrs. Potts,” said Percy, handing over the money. She tucked the letters and the rock into her bag and donated a brief smile. “Good afternoon, now. I shall inquire after Juniper’s plans on your behalf, but I suspect when there’s anything to know, you’ll be the first to know it.”
