“It couldn’t have been so very bad, or you would have screamed, I know;” and with this parting shot Priscilla walked away.
“Aren’t you going to watch me paint?” called Loveday anxiously.
“No, I am not,” said Priscilla shortly. She was feeling cross and dissatisfied, and she knew she was behaving unkindly, which did not help her to feel happier. Geoffrey had disappeared since he brought back the paint-box, and Priscilla felt dull and miserable; she could not think of anything she wanted to do. First of all she wandered up to the nursery, but it looked lonely, so she quickly came out again, and, strolling downstairs, went out into the yard.
The afternoon sun was shining hotly, right down into the yard, bringing out the beautiful scents of the mignonette and lemon-verbena in the box on the kitchen window-sill, and the aromatic smell of the scenty-leaved geranium. On the ground underneath the window stood several very large fuchsias in pots; their branches hung thickly with pendent graceful blossoms like little dancers, some in pink frocks with white petticoats, others in white frocks with pink petticoats, while others, again, had scarlet frocks with purple petticoats.
All the plants belonged to Ellen, the cook, who had a perfect passion for flowers and growing plants. One of the greatest offences the children could commit was to break or injure any of her treasures in any way.
Ellen was leaning out of the window now, admiring her beloved plants, smoothing over the earth with her fingers, and tidying away any dead leaves, and all the time she was doing it she talked to the plants just as though they could hear her and understand. She picked a leaf of the scenty geranium and offered it to Priscilla, who took it gratefully, for she loved the scent, and Ellen was not often so generous.
It was too hot in the yard to remain there long, and too dull, so Priscilla presently wandered away to the orchard beyond. The orchard was on the slope of the hill at the back of the house, and was full of very old apple-trees. Each of the children had a favourite tree, and a favourite seat in it. Priscilla clambered up to hers, and sat there for a few moments, sniffing at her geranium leaf and looking about her rather disconsolately; it was so stupid and uninteresting to be there alone, yet nothing else seemed worth doing by herself, and what had become of Geoffrey she did not know.
“I don’t wonder Miss Potts is sorry she has no brothers or sisters; it must be dreadful to be always without any. I wonder how little ‘only’ girls and boys play? They can’t ever have such nice games as we have.”
She sat up amongst the branches, gazing down through the shady trees, pondering over this matter and sniffing at her leaf; and all her life after, the scent of those geraniums brought back to her mind the sunny day, Loveday’s tooth-pulling, Miss Potts, the old orchard, and the serious mood she was in there.
Presently the sound of horses’ hoofs on rough cobble-stones reached her. “That must be Betsy being harnessed,” she murmured, beginning at once to climb down; “I wonder if father is going out?”