A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [78]
“Yes, but—”
Mr. Weavall fumbled in the box and held up a gold coin that would have bought his cottage.
“A little something for you, then, girl,” he said. “Buy yourself some ribbons or something….”
“No! I can’t! That wouldn’t be fair!” Tiffany protested desperately. This was completely going wrong!
“Wouldn’t it, now?” said Mr. Weavall, and his bright eyes gave her a long, shrewd look. “Well, then, let’s call it payment for this little errand you’re gonna run for I, eh? You’re gonna run up they stairs, which I can’t quite manage anymore, and bring down the black suit that’s hanging behind the door, and there’s a clean shirt in the chest at the end of the bed. And you’ll polish my boots and help I up, but I’m thinking I could prob’ly make it down the lane on my own.’Cuz, y’see, this is far too much money to buy a man’s funeral, but I reckon it’ll do fine to marry him off, so I am proposin’ to propose to the Widow Tussy that she engages in matrimony with I!”
The last sentence took a little working out, and then Tiffany said, “You are?”
“That I am,” said Mr. Weavall, struggling to his feet. “She’s a fine woman who bakes a very reasonable steak-and-onion pie, and she has all her own teeth. I know that because she showed I. Her youngest son got her a set of fancy store-bought teeth all the way from the big city, and very handsome she looks in ’em. She was kind enough to loan ’em to I one day when I had a difficult piece of pork to tackle, and a man doesn’t forget a kindness like that.”
“Er…you don’t think you ought to think about this, do you?” said Tiffany.
Mr. Weavall laughed. “Think? I got no business to be thinking about it, young lady! Who’re you to tell an old ’un like I that he ought to be thinking? I’m ninety-one, I am! Got to be up and doing! Besides, I have reason to believe by the twinkle in her eye that the Widow Tussy will not turn up her nose at my suggestion. I’ve seen a fair number of twinkles over the years, and that was a good ’un. And I daresay that suddenly having a box of gold will fill in the corners, as my ol’ dad would say.”
It took ten minutes for Mr. Weavall to get changed, with a lot of struggling and bad language and no help from Tiffany, who was told to turn her back and put her hands over her ears. Then she had to help him out into the garden, where he threw away one walking stick and waggled a finger at the weeds.
“And I’ll be chopping down the lot of you tomorrow!” he shouted triumphantly.
At the garden gate he grasped the post and pulled himself nearly vertical, panting.
“All right,” he said, just a little anxiously. “It’s now or never. I look okay, does I?”
“You look fine, Mr. Weavall.”
“Everything clean? Everything done up?”
“Er…yes,” said Tiffany.
“How’s my hair look?”
“Er…you don’t have any, Mr. Weavall,” she reminded him.
“Ah, right. Yes, ’tis true. I’ll have to buy one o’ they whatdyoucallem’s, like a hat made of hair? Have I got enough money for that, d’you think?”
“A wig? You could buy thousands, Mr. Weavall!”
“Hah! Right.” His gleaming eyes looked around the garden. “Any flowers out? Can’t see too well…. Ah…speckatickles, I saw ’em once, made of glass, makes you see good as new. That’s what I need…. Have I got enough for speckatickles?”
“Mr. Weavall,” said Tiffany, “you’ve got enough for anything.”
“Why, bless you!” said Mr. Weavall. “But right now I need a bow-kwet of flowers, girl. Can’t go courtin’ without flowers and I can’t see none. Anythin’ left?”
A few roses were hanging on among the weeds and briars in the garden. Tiffany fetched a knife from the kitchen and made them up into a bouquet.
“Ah, good,” he said. “Late bloomers, just like I!” He held them tightly in his free hand and suddenly frowned, and fell silent, and stood like a statue.
“I wish my Toby and my Mary was goin’ to be able to come to the weddin’,” he said quietly. “But they’re dead, you know.”
“Yes,” said Tiffany. “I know, Mr. Weavall.”
“And I could wish that my Nancy was alive, too, although