CHAPTER II
The time I’ve lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light that lies
In woman’s eyes,
Has been my heart’s undoing.Thomas Moore.
The subject of the conversation recently recorded was slowly removing her ‘blacks,’ and laying them carefully away on the lavender-scented shelves in the desolate upper chamber of the home which had suddenly grown so lonely. Divested of the flowing mantle, the tall, well-moulded figure was set off by its close-fitting black robe; and the face, which had been hidden from view by the thick folds of crape, proved able to stand the test of the glaring summer sunshine. The adjective ‘plain,’ applied to the widow by her late husband’s friend, must be taken only in its local sense as signifying ‘simple and straightforward;’ even to the indifferent eyes of this elderly yeoman Rosalie’s beauty had ripened and increased during the four years that had elapsed since her marriage with his friend. The black lashes which shaded her lovely eyes were still wet; the red lips quivered, and the bosom heaved convulsively. Most of the friends and neighbours of the late Mr. Fiander would have been astonished—not to say scandalised—at the sight of such grief. It was quite decent and becoming to cry in church where everybody was looking at you, but to cry when you were alone for an old man of sixty-two—when you had been left in undisputed possession of all his property, and might with perfect impunity marry again at the earliest possible opportunity—it was not only unreasonable and foolish, but rank ingratitude for the most merciful dispensation of Providence.
But Mrs. Fiander continued to sob to herself, and to look blankly round the empty room, and out at the wide fields where the familiar figure had been wont to roam; and when, taking the new widow’s cap from its box, she arranged it on the top of her abundant hair, she could not repress a fresh gush of tears.
‘Poor Fiander!’ she said to herself, ‘he would n’t let me wear it if he knew. It makes me a perfect fright, and is so cumbersome and so much in the way. But I’ll wear it all the same. Nobody shall say I’m wanting in respect to his memory. Dear, dear, not a week gone yet! It seems more like a year.’
She descended the stairs slowly, and entered the parlour. There was the high-backed chair where Fiander used to sit waiting for the Sunday midday meal; there also was the stool on which he supported his gouty leg. Opposite was another chair, invariably occupied by Farmer Sharpe on Sunday afternoons, when, after a walk round his neighbour’s land, he came in for a chat and a smoke. Mrs. Fiander herself had always sat at the table, joining in the conversation from time to time, after she had mixed for her husband and his friend the stiff glass of grog of which it was their custom to partake. Fiander said nobody mixed it so well as she, and even Mr. Sharpe occasionally nodded approval, and generously agreed that she was a first-rate hand.
She wondered idly if Mr. Sharpe would come to-day; she almost hoped he would. She did not like to walk round the fields alone—people would think it strange, too—and it was so lonely and so dreary sitting by herself in the house.
But Mr. Sharpe’s chair remained empty all that afternoon; Mrs. Fiander, however, had other visitors. It was getting near tea-time, and she was looking forward somewhat anxiously to the arrival of that meal which would make a break in the dismal hours, when a genteel knock at the door startled her. She knew it was not Isaac, for it was his custom to walk in uninvited, and thought it might be some other neighbour coming with a word of comfort. She was surprised, however, when the maid ushered in a tall, stout young man, whom she recognised as the son of one of the leading tradespeople in the town. Andrew Burge’s father was, indeed, not only cab and coach proprietor on a large scale, but also undertaker, and Rosalie now remembered that her actual visitor had taken a prominent part at her husband’s funeral.
‘I jest called to see how you might be getting on, Mrs. Fiander,’ he remarked, ‘and to offer my respectful condoliences. ’T was a melancholy occasion where we met last, Mrs. Fiander.’
‘It was indeed,’ said Rosalie; adding, somewhat stiffly, ‘Take a seat, Mr. Burge.’