“Oh, I came” said Uncle Pentstemon. “I came.”
He turned on Mrs. Larkins. “Gals in service?” he asked.
“They aren’t and they won’t be,” said Mrs. Larkins.
“No,” he said with infinite meaning, and turned his eye on Mr. Polly.
“You Lizzie’s boy?” he said.
Mr. Polly was spared much self-exposition by the tumult occasioned by further arrivals.
“Ah! here’s May Punt!” said Mrs. Johnson, and a small woman dressed in the borrowed mourning of a large woman and leading a very small long-haired observant little boy—it was his first funeral—appeared, closely followed by several friends of Mrs. Johnson who had come to swell the display of respect and made only vague, confused impressions upon Mr. Polly’s mind. (Aunt Mildred, who was an unexplained family scandal, had declined Mrs. Johnson’s hospitality.)
Everybody was in profound mourning, of course, mourning in the modern English style, with the dyer’s handiwork only too apparent, and hats and jackets of the current cut. There was very little crape, and the costumes had none of the goodness and specialisation and genuine enjoyment of mourning for mourning’s sake that a similar continental gathering would have displayed. Still that congestion of strangers in black sufficed to stun and confuse Mr. Polly’s impressionable mind. It seemed to him much more extraordinary than anything he had expected.
“Now, gals,” said Mrs. Larkins, “see if you can help,” and the three daughters became confusingly active between the front room and the back.
“I hope everyone’ll take a glass of sherry and a biscuit,” said Mrs. Johnson. “We don’t stand on ceremony,” and a decanter appeared in the place of Uncle Pentstemon’s vegetables.