“She is wanting some for Zebadiah’s family too; they are left in bad straits, she says. I was only too glad to find that she and her sister-in-law have buried the hatchet at last; they’ve been at loggerheads for years; she really spoke very nicely about it. She said the older she got the more she felt life was too short to spend it in quarrelling, and at a time like this she thought bygones should be bygones. I don’t like to misjudge the woman,” Miss Bretherton continued with a sigh. “Sometimes she seems so anxious to do right. Her bringing up was against her. And yet——” And then the Rectoress closed her lips firmly determined to say no uncharitable thing, even about “that Jane Price.”
I’m afraid I didn’t think too highly of Mrs. Price at that moment. I remembered the parcels of black garments waiting at my house and again at Miss Primkins’. Moreover, Mrs. Price’s occasional lapses into fervent piety annoyed me very much, because I suspected they were developed for my benefit. She always gave me a long recital of woes and financial difficulties whenever she saw me, and invariably finished up with, “But thur, thur, I don’t let it worry me, for I always say, ‘The Lord will provide.’” I much objected to her taking the Name in vain in this manner, more especially as it generally happened that she gave Providence every assistance in the matter by helping herself to anything that lay within reach of her hand!
We did not stay long at the rectory, as I wanted to call on the lady of the manor. She kept us waiting a few minutes before she appeared; but explained, as she apologised for the delay, “I’ve just turned out five trunks, two cupboards, and four chests of drawers—and goodness knows how many more I should have set upon if you hadn’t come! It’s a pastime that seems to grow upon one like taking to drink or gambling—the more you have the more you want!
“I only meant to look through one chest for a black bonnet I thought I had put there—I’m trying to find some funeral wear for that Mrs. Price. Her husband’s brother has died, Zebadiah Price; they live over the hills at Penglyn. While he was alive, she hadn’t a good word to say for his wife; but now he’s gone, her conscience seems to worry her, and she says she feels the very least she can do is ‘to show respeck to the remains,’ and she wants to help his family. So I’ve been going over a good deal of ancient history in my search for garments calculated to show a sufficiency of respect. She said she was afraid that what she had on might give a wrong impression.”
“If she wore the same set of glad rags that she had on when she came to see us, likewise asking for mourning,” Virginia interpolated, “she’d give the impression of a ragged rainbow gone wrong and turned inside out, rather than a funeral.”
“Oh, she’s been to you, has she? She told me she couldn’t think of making so bold as to intrude her troubles on other people, and only came to me because she knew I had been so kind to Zebadiah years ago when he was ill; and added that my clothes always suited her so well!”
When we got outside, Virginia suggested with a twinkle that we should call on a few more people. We did, and at every house we were met with the sad intelligence of Zebadiah Price’s death and his sister-in-law’s quest for suitably respectful apparel.
Surely Royalty could not have been more universally mourned—in our village, at any rate!