Rosalie was disconsolately polishing the hand which had received this undesired token of interest, when the door creaked slowly open, and a tall, gaunt, elderly female, clad in rusty black, and wearing somewhat on the back of her head a flat black bonnet, with the strings untied, entered the room. This was Mrs. Greene, a personage generally to be met with in this neighbourhood in households whose number had recently been either increased or diminished. She was equally at home, as she once remarked, with babies and with corpses; and she filled up the intervals by ‘charing.’ Her appearance was so genteel, and her manner of fulfilling her various duties so elegant, that the clergyman’s daughter had once remarked that she was wonderfully refined for a char-woman; the appellation had stuck to her, and she was commonly known as the ‘refined char-woman’ among such of the ‘gentry’ as occasionally employed her in that capacity.
She had come to Littlecomb Farm to ‘lay out’ poor Elias Fiander, and she was remaining on as chief factotum and comforter. For it was n’t to be supposed that the poor young widow ’ud be eq’al to lookin’ after the maids—much less to turn her thoughts to doin’ for herself. She now advanced slowly to the table, and after heaving a deep sigh proceeded to lay the cloth. Rosalie knew that she was burning to enter into conversation, but was too much dispirited to encourage her. But by-and-by, after a preliminary cough, Mrs. Greene remarked in a lugubrious tone:
‘That’s a lovely cap, mum. Everybody was a-sayin’ that you did look charmin’ in your weeds. Ay, that was what they said. “She do look charming”—that was the very thing they said; “’t is a comfort, too,” says they, “to see how nice she do mourn for Mr. Fiander.” They was all a-passing the remark one to the other about it, mum—admirable they said it was.’
‘Nonsense,’ cried Rosalie wrathfully, but with a little quaver in her voice; ‘it would be very strange, I think, if I did not grieve for such a good husband. I wish people would n’t talk about me,’ she added petulantly.
‘Talk!’ ejaculated Mrs. Greene dismally. ‘Ah, they will talk, mum, you may depend on it. They’ll al’ays talk, and perticlarly about a young widow. Lord, how they did go on about me when poor Greene died! They did n’t leave so much as my furnitur’ alone. Whether I could afford to keep it, or whether I’d be for ridden house and goin’ into lodgin’s, and whether I’d put the children in an orphanage and get married again—it was enough to drive a body silly the way they did go on.’
‘Disgusting,’ cried Rosalie, now faintly interested. ‘The idea of talking of a second marriage when your poor husband was only just dead.’
‘Why, that be the first thing they’d talk on,’ with a kind of dismal triumph—‘more perticlar if a woman be young and good-lookin’. In your own case, mum, I do assure ye they be all a-pickin’ out your second. Ah, that’s what they be a-doin’, but as they all picks different men they don’t so very well agree.’
‘Mrs. Greene!’ ejaculated her mistress indignantly, wheeling round in her chair, ‘what do you mean? How dare you come and repeat such things to me—it’s positively indecent!’
‘That be the very remark as I did pass myself to the men yesterday,’ retorted Mrs. Greene, pausing to contemplate Mrs. Fiander with her hands upon her hips. ‘The very thing. “’t is most onbecomin’,” says I, “to be settin’ yourselves up to pry into the affairs o’ your betters. Missus,” says I, “be a-thinkin’ of nothing but her mournin’ so far, and when she do make her ch’ice,” says I, “she’ll please herself and pick out him as is most suitable.” Them was my words, mum.’
‘Well,’ cried Rosalie, rising to her feet impetuously, ‘I wonder you dare to own them to me, Mrs. Greene. I think that, considering you are a widow yourself, you ought to know better than to accuse another woman of such faithlessness. If you think I could ever, ever forget my good kind husband, you are much mistaken.’