Scones and Sensibility (3 page)

Clementine glared at me quite viciously, but I chose to ignore it, for I knew that in saving her from
further conversation with this horrible boy, I was in the right.

And as Clementine and I continued to assist customers, I found enjoyment in watching Clint attempt to eat the loaf, which I knew to be quite impossible. After having spent some time gnawing on the blackened crust, he gave up and rejoined Clementine at the counter. “You might need to work on those loaves, Clemmy,” I heard him say. “I almost broke a tooth biting into it.” And then thankfully he left the bakery and the sun seemed to shine once more.

“Humph,” I said. “Perhaps tomorrow we may be so lucky that he will indeed break a tooth. But one can only hope.”

“Can it, Polly,” Clementine huffed, and left me to attend to the other waiting customers.

The morning continued on, and in between tending to our patrons, I was able to reread little snippets of
Pride and Prejudice
and relish in the words and romance that leapt off the page at me.

Indeed I was so enraptured by the scene where Miss Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr. Darcy for the first time that I did not notice my bosom friend enter with her beloved father, Mr. Fisk.

“Hey, Polly!” Fran said, startling me to the present.

I placed the book upon the counter and grasped her hands in mine, noticing a brand-new friendship bracelet encircling her delicate wrist. Indeed, Fran enjoyed making these bracelets more than any other activity, it seemed. She had even recently declared that she hoped to be a jeweler when she grew up, which I thought very romantic indeed.

“Hey, Fran! I mean … why dearest Fran, Mr. Fisk. What a pleasant surprise to find you in our midst!”

Mr. Fisk smiled. “I’ve been craving one of your cinnamon rolls and coffee for the past few days. And well, Fran and me get a bit … lonely sometimes bumping around our house with just the two of us. So I said, ‘what the heck,’ turned off my computer, and here we are.”

“Well, it is wonderful indeed!” I proclaimed, though I was quite alarmed at Mr. Fisk’s use of the word
lonely
. He had never used such a word before. Though I must admit I had yearned to hear just such a sentiment.

Three years ago my best friend and her beloved father found out that Mrs. Fisk had fallen deeply and completely in love with a man she had met on the computer.

No one had heard from her since.

Were he and my dearest friend really … lonely? The thought was disconcerting, though a part of me thrilled at what exactly that could mean for my bosom friend and her father. What I
hoped
it could mean.

“I guess I’ll have a cinnamon roll, too,” Fran said.

I smiled and attempted to read her face that did, in fact, appear a bit forlorn, and dare I say … lonely? My heart ached for her! “But of course. And you and your father will receive nothing but the royal treatment at Madassa Bakery. So please, take a seat and I’ll have it right out to you.”

And as they made their way to a small table big enough for three or four people, which seemed to quite swallow them up, I could not help but watch them closely for any appearance of the said loneliness and despair (which in books often go hand in hand).

I imagined my dear friends alone in their house on a cold, snowy winter’s morn. The snow outside keeping them indoors and the light of the fire casting shadows about the near-empty living room. Together they sat, though not a word was spoken.

Then I thought of the two of them sitting at their breakfast table, both lost in their own worlds of loneliness, and quietness being their constant companion.

Poor Fran. And poor Mr. Fisk.

The horrible news of Mrs. Fisk came as a shock to Fran, who was a mere child of nine, as well as to her father, who at the time was forty-two and had no idea how to make any meal besides cold cereal. Indeed, up until a few months prior, that is the only nourishment that my dearest bosom friend received, besides the occasional manufactured chicken nugget.

Fran came through the unfortunate computer-dating incident relatively unscathed, though I cannot say the same for her father. Mr. Fisk, who is practically my second father, has spent most of the past three and a half years cooped up in his office with his loathsome computer or on his way to his office to spend time on his loathsome computer.

Either way, his behavior was highly unhealthy.

The shock of Mrs. Fisk hit me hard as well. I had known the woman as a devoted, elegant mother who adored her husband, daughter, and myself with all of her heart and soul. When she departed, I mourned deeply for my wounded friend.

But even more, I wept at the loss of romance and the splintering of a marriage I had imagined would continue throughout eternity. Indeed, I knew that I would never have to endure the hardship of losing a parent to an online suitor, since my own dear father
and mother have a love that is one of those found only in such romances as my dearest Jane Austen or Lucy Maud Montgomery have written. But still, something was lost in the moment Mrs. Fisk left and I have attempted over these past three years to regain the hope of true love once more. And indeed it was reading
Anne of Green Gables
and
Pride and Prejudice
that slowly healed the wound and gave me hope once more for my bosom friend and her father.

And yet now Mr. Fisk had spoken the sorrow-laden word
lonely
and Fran looked every bit the part of a despairing girl. Indeed, Mr. Fisk had been quite jovial the past few months, and had obviously decided that brushing his hair and wearing something other than sweatpants was not an unforgivable sin. I gazed at his person and nodded at the way his hair was combed quite nicely to the side, and his button-up shirt looked very handsome, if not a tad on the wrinkled side.

Could it be that Mr. Fisk was indeed ready for love once more? Could it be that Fran was in desperate want of a mother?

My heart thumped in my chest at the wondrous yet terrifying thought. Hope that was but a seed in my soul sprouted its promise inside me.

And perhaps I, Polly Madassa, could also take my
dearest friends under my matchmaking wing? Excitement bubbled inside me at the thrill of possibly bringing true love to my dearest friends.

Imagine. Mr. Fisk’s arm wrapped around the slender waist of a most elegant woman called Cordelia Amaryllis. Fran holding her hand and calling her “beloved stepmother.”

Yet the word
stepmother
conjured up images and thoughts that were not very pleasant. My dearest friend sent off to boarding school and forced to live in a dark attic with nothing but cobwebs and a lump of coal to soothe her. Or even worse, Fran living in her own house but considered a servant; forced to clean a very dirty chimney—her once rosy cheeks soiled by the soot and ash of disgrace. Cinder-Fran. The name was as vile as the images they projected!

I shook the visions from my head and imagined a kind stepmother. For certainly there were many kind ones present in the world—I was convinced upon it. She and Fran sewing by candlelight, or perhaps walking along the beach collecting seashells.

“Polly Madassa, what in the world are you doing?”

I jumped from out of my reverie and found Mama and Papa standing before me, gazing at the brown puddle on the floor. Indeed, I had become so engrossed
in the misfortunes of my dearest friends that I had quite filled up Mr. Fisk’s coffee a few times over, and it was now dripping onto the floor. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching for a towel and sopping up the coffee. “I just got caught up in thinking of Fran and Mr. Fisk and Cordelia Amaryllis.”

“And I suppose these were supposed to be cinnamon rolls?” Mama said. Indeed, much could not be said for the cinnamon rolls I had placed in the oven to merely warm. They were both quite charred (though please note that they were not nearly as blackened as the unfortunate pumpkin loaves of earlier) and the sugar now scorched the bottom of the oven, from which smoke was beginning to billow.

Clementine peeked over my father’s shoulder and arched her eyebrow at me. “See, I told you that oven burns everything.”

I
let out a sigh as Mama locked the front door precisely at 1:00 and turned over our sign announcing that Madassa Bakery was now closed. Indeed, I had just finished cleaning the oven and was quite dismayed at the fact that I was not able to serve Fran and her father. Papa had insisted that he take care of them while I slaved over the unfortunate mess.

Fran and dear Mr. Fisk left the bakery hours earlier with nothing but a wave and an “I’ll call you later, Polly, okay?”

“This is most vexing to me,” I said aloud. (I had learned the word
vexing
from dear Jane Austen and had hoped to find a circumstance in which I could use it. This was definitely one such moment.) “Yes, I am very vexed indeed,” I said again.

My dearest bosom friend and her father were perhaps about to embark on the most wondrous journey of finding a companion and loving stepmother and I was unable to speak with them or even study them because I was sentenced to cleaning up the unfortunate coffee spill and cinnamon roll burning. And it was I who needed to help Mr. Fisk find his Elizabeth Bennet.

“Vexing.”

Not to mention that dearest Clementine was still quite vexed with me for disrupting her rendezvous with Clint earlier.

“Very, very vexing,” I said, enjoying the sound that the words made. Indeed, it sounded just like how I felt at the moment.

“Thanks, Polly,” Papa said, placing a kind hand upon my shoulder. “It was a busy morning.”

I looked up from my thoughts, nodded in agreement, and gazed at the shelves empty of all but the unfortunate pumpkin loaves. “Indeed it was, Papa. And now I think I will take a small turn about the neighborhood, for I have much to contemplate and my spirit is much … vexed.”

“Turn about the neighborhood?” Mama asked, removing her apron.

Papa laughed. “I think she’s going on a walk. Right, Polly?”

“Yes, Papa,” I said, and I turned to leave.

“Well, if you’re going on your ‘turn’ why don’t you contemplate yourself down to Miss Wiskerton’s and deliver these leftover bagels and some of these homemade dog bones for Jack. I think she gets pretty lonely all by herself, now that her mother has passed.”

Though I wished to speak upon the subject of her temperamental dog and the fact that he was very undeserving of the bones, I kept my tongue quiet, took the bag from my mother’s hand, and left the house quite a bit more vexed than before.

Yet the sun was successful in her cheer, and by the time I had walked a few steps I could not help but smile and find myself quite contented with my turn about the neighborhood as well as the delivery I was to make.

I strolled along the sidewalk toward Miss Wiskerton’s cottage, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the fragrant sea salt hanging thick in the air, and thinking of the woman. Indeed, her story was quite tragic. An aging maid who had never known the romantic love of a gentleman, for she spent her every moment doting on her unwell mother. This had also turned her
into quite a trollish figure, always in a state of agitation at something or someone.

A sorrowful story indeed.

I continued on my way and was stopped no more than fifty feet from said woman’s house. Miss Eugenia May Wiskerton spent most days beached on her lawn chair with her disagreeable dog, Jack the Nipper (Fran and I had named him such after an unfortunate incident when he broke away from his restraint). Yet today was quite different.

The mailman, Mr. Snookers, was delivering the mail, much to Jack the Nipper’s protest, and Miss Wiskerton seemed to be in quite a frenzy of excitement. At the same time she attempted to calm the ferocious beast, her cheeks flushed, and she kept trying to fluff up her hair, which sat in sausagelike rolls on her head.

Mama’s voice came back to me at once: “I believe she is just a lonely maiden in need of love’s kiss” or something quite similar.

I quickened my step to her small gate as Mr. Snookers ran past me at quite an astonishing speed when one considers his girth. Jack the Nipper was subdued as much as a dog of his disposition could be, and Miss Wiskerton appeared to look down the street at the retreated mailman with a hint of remorse.

Miss Wiskerton was indeed lonely. Lonely for love.

“Good day, Miss Wiskerton. I hope you are fine this morning?”

“Hello, Polly,” she said, turning back to her lawn chair.

Jack the Nipper stared viciously at me with his blackened eyes, but I lifted my nose to him, unwilling to fall under his spell of intimidation. Still, I felt it unwise to enter the gate, lest my dainty ankles be punctured by his pointed, bloodthirsty teeth.

“I have brought you some of our famous bagels as well as some treats for Jack,” I said, causing her to turn back around.

She smiled, and indeed it was a rather pretty smile, if not a little wrinkled by the sun. “Thank you, Polly. Jack loves those bones, and you know how I feel about the Madassa bagels.”