“Yes,” Jemima went on to illustrate, “all Roseborough is a-waitin’ breathless to see what you’ll do nex’—you bein’ the widder of a aristocrat but the chil’ of a farm.”
“Standing, so to speak, with one foot on the throne and the other on the churn?” milady murmured between bites at a large berry.
“Wilton Howard’s too young—he’s on’y aroun’ thirty-five,” Jemima continued. “Though him bein’ a relation of the departed has a sort of sentimentality to it. It’ll be the Judge, if ever she do take unto her another spouse. Him an’ Mr. Mearely was intimate bach’lor frien’s; an’ the Judge is a highborn man, specially on his mother’s side—‘Doubledott’ bein’ one of our proudest names. An’ he’s jus’ fifty-three years old, what is the exac’ age Mr. Hibbert Mearely was when he lifted you from the farm gate to the altar. It’d be a’most like gettin’ married to Mr. Mearely all over again—specially as the Judge not havin’ any property, you’d be livin’ on here with him.”
This graphic prophecy of a second state of connubial bliss affected Mrs. Mearely strongly. She burst into explosive sobs.
“Yes! yes—yes! It would be just the—the same as marrying Hib—Hib—Hibbert Mearely all o—o—over again! And I’m only—only—not quite—twenty-four. Oh—h—h!”
She swept the dishes back ruthlessly, overtoppling the hot water pitcher—Amanda saved the cream just in time—and hid her face on her black-flowered, lavender sleeves with their white cuffs (which, being amorously interpreted by the Roseborough gossip, had provoked this sorrow) and sobbed as stormily and shamelessly as if she were still little Rosamond Cort pouring out the briny aftermath of punishment in the hayrick behind the dairy.
“There, there, ma’am,” Amanda said, gently. “There, there. Who could know better how you feel than His Friggets, what has been to Hibbert Mearely fifty year—mother an’ daughters—all that hired help can be in the life of any highborn man?”
“Who could know better’n us?” Jemima obbligatoed.
“It’s like a sacrilege to you to think of putting any man, even Judge Giffen, acrost the table from you under that portrait. To take a secon’ spouse seems to some natures a’most indelicate. Ma’am, while His Friggets is conductin’ Mr. Hibbert Mearely’s late home on earth, gossip can say no word agin you, for I’ll promise you as no young sheeps-eyed, gallantin’ male critter will ever get inside the walls of Villa Rose to blaspheme your sacred mem’ries. It’ll be the Judge or none—an’ I ain’t decided yet even as the Judge....” She stopped short.
From the little anteroom which connected the living room with the formal dining room came a tinkling.