“Nancy Fazackerly doesn’t look like a widow,” Mrs. Kendal said, about this time. Her tone was not exactly disparaging, although neither was it enthusiastic. But her wide, opaque gaze rested quite blandly upon Nancy as she spoke.
“What does a widow look like?”
Mumma is not apt at definitions, and she only replied that a widow generally looked like a widow, and that Nancy Fazackerly didn’t.
“So much the better,” said I.
“She is very young,” Mumma said tolerantly. “And I believe it is a positive fact that her first husband was in the habit of throwing plates at her head.”
She paused for a moment, and then, as far as Mumma’s large face can express anything, it expressed confusion.
“When I say her first husband,” she incredibly remarked, “I mean to say her late husband.”
I really thought that I had better not hear this at all, and so I turned the conversation abruptly to “The Bulbul Ameer.”
It was very easy to do this, since everyone who knew anything at all about the play, and many who did not, appeared to hold very strong views about the manner of its production and to be eager to advocate them.
Mumma was no exception.