The Crown Derby Plate by Seth

Author:Seth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2016-08-05T20:31:50+00:00

Martha Pym certainly did and she looked eagerly and greedily round the walls, tables, and cabinets while the old woman followed her with little thin squeals of pleasure.

It was a beautiful little collection, most choicely and elegantly arranged, and Martha thought it marvellous that this feeble ancient creature should be able to keep it in such precise order as well as doing her own housework.

“Do you really do everything yourself here and live quite alone?” she asked, and she shivered even in her thick coat and wished that Miss Lefain’s energy had risen to a fire, but then probably she lived in the kitchen, as these lonely eccentrics often did.

“There was someone,” answered Miss Lefain cunningly, “but I had to send her away. I told you she’s gone, I can’t find her, and I am so glad. Of course,” she added wistfully, “it leaves me very lonely, but then I couldn’t stand her impertinence any longer. She used to say that it was her house and her collection of china! Would you believe it? She used to try to chase me away from looking at my own things!”

“How very disagreeable,” said Miss Pym, wondering which of the two women had been crazy. “But hadn’t you better get someone else.”

“Oh, no,” was the jealous answer. “I would rather be alone with my things, I daren’t leave the house for fear someone takes them away—there was a dreadful time once when an auction sale was held here”

“Were you here then?” asked Miss Pym; but indeed she looked old enough to have been anywhere.

“Yes, of course,” Miss Lefain replied rather peevishly and Miss Pym decided that she must be a relation of old Sir James Sewell. Clara and Mabel had been very foggy about it all. “I was very busy hiding all the china—but one set they got—a Crown Derby tea service”

“With one plate missing!” cried Martha Pym. “I bought it, and do you know, I was wondering if you’d found it”

“I hid it,” piped Miss Lefain.

“Oh, you did, did you? Well, that’s rather funny behaviour. Why did you hide the stuff away instead of buying it?”

“How could I buy what was mine?”

“Old Sir James left it to you, then?” asked Martha Pym, feeling very muddled.

“She bought a lot more,” squeaked Miss Lefain, but Martha Pym tried to keep her to the point.

“If you’ve got the plate,” she insisted, “you might let me have it—I’ll pay quite handsomely, it would be so pleasant to have it after all these years.”

“Money is no use to me,” said Miss Lefain mournfully. “Not a bit of use. I can’t leave the house or the garden.”

“Well, you have to live, I suppose,” replied Martha Pym cheerfully. “And, do you know, I’m afraid you are getting rather morbid and dull, living here all alone—you really ought to have a fire—why, it’s just on Christmas and very damp.”

“I haven’t felt the cold for a long time,” replied the other; she seated herself with a sigh on one of the

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