“Thank you,” said the visitor.
“It’s dandelion.”
“Very kind of you, I’m sure.” Cronshaw drew a chair up to the fireplace, though the fire had not been lit, and the grate was full of ashes, and asked if he might smoke. Pettigrove did not mind; he poured out a glass of the yellow wine while Cronshaw lit his pipe. The room smelled stuffy, heavy noises came from overhead as if men were moving furniture. The stranger swallowed a few drops of the wine, coughed, and said: “My sister-in-law is dead, I’m sorry to say. You had not heard, I suppose?”
“Dead!” whispered Pettigrove. “Mrs. Cronshaw! No, no, I had not, I had not heard that, I did not know. Mrs. Cronshaw dead—is it true?”
“Ah,” said the stranger with a laboured sigh. “Two nights ago in a hospital at Mundesley. I’ve just come on from there. It was very sudden, O, frightfully sudden, but it was not unexpected, poor woman, it’s been off and on with her for years. She was very much attached to this village, I suppose, and we’re going to bury her here, it was her last request. That’s what I want to do now. I want to arrange about the burial and the disposal of her things and to give up possession of your house. I’m very sorry for that.”
“I’m uncommon grieved to hear this,” said Pettigrove. “She was a handsome lady.”
“O yes,” the ironmonger took out his pocket-book and prepared to write in it.
“A handsome lady,” continued the countryman tremulously, “handsome, handsome.”
At that moment someone came heavily down the stairs and knocked at the parlour door.
“Come in,” cried Pettigrove. A man with red face and white hair shuffled into the room; he was dressed in a black suit that had been made for a man not only bigger, but probably different in other ways.