Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [57]
‘You were saying your husband wanted you to cook a hen for him.’
‘Oh, yes. And I’ve been so sorry ever since I didn’t. I wake up in the night and think of it. But I didn’t know he was going to die, Mrs Blythe. He never complained much, and always said he was better. And interested in things to the last. If I’d-a-known he was going to die, Mrs Blythe, I’d have cooked a hen for him, eggs or no eggs.’
Mrs Mitchell removed her rusty black lace mits and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, black-bordered a full two inches.
‘He’d have enjoyed it,’ she sobbed. ‘He had his own teeth to the last, poor dear. Well, anyway’ – folding the handkerchief and putting on the mits – ‘he was sixty-five so he weren’t far from the allotted span. And I’ve got another coffin plate. Mary Martha Plummer and me started collecting coffin plates at the same time, but she soon got ahead of me… so many of her relations died, not to speak of her three children. She’s got more coffin plates than anyone in these parts. I didn’t seem to have much luck, but I’ve got a full mantelpiece at last. My cousin, Thomas Bates, was buried last week, and I wanted his wife to give me the coffin plate, but she had it buried with him. Said collecting coffin plates was a relic of barbarism. She was a Hampson, and the Hampsons were always odd. Well, where was I?’
Anne really could not tell Mrs Mitchell where she was this time. The coffin plates had dazed her.
‘Oh, well, anyway, poor Anthony died. “I go gladly and in quietness,” was all that he said, but he smiled just at the last… at the ceiling, not at me nor Seraphine. I’m so glad he was so happy just afore he died. There were times I used to think perhaps he wasn’t quite happy, Mrs Blythe… he was so terrible high-strung and sensitive. But he looked real noble and sublime in his coffin. We had a grand funeral. It was just a lovely day. He was buried with loads of flowers. I took a sinking spell at the last, but otherwise everything went off very well. We buried him in the Upper Glen graveyard, though all his family were buried in Lowbridge. But he picked out his graveyard long ago… said he wanted to be buried near his farm and where he could hear the sea and the wind in the trees… there’s trees around three sides of that graveyard, you know. I was glad, too, I always thought it was such a cosy little graveyard, and we can keep geraniums growing on his grave. He was a good man… he’s likely in heaven now, so that needn’t trouble you. I always think it must be some chore to write an obitchery when you don’t know where the departed is. I can depend on you then, Mrs Blythe?’
Anne consented, feeling that Mrs Mitchell would stay there and talk until she did consent. Mrs Mitchell, with another sigh of relief, heaved herself out of her chair.
‘I must be stepping. I’m expecting a hatching of turkey poults today. I’ve enjoyed my conversation with you and I wish I could have stayed longer. It’s lonesome being a widow woman. A man mayn’t amount to an awful lot, but you sort of miss him when he goes.’
Anne politely saw her down the walk. The children were stalking robins on the lawn and daffodil tips were poking up everywhere.
‘You’ve got a nice proud house here… a real, nice, proud house, Mrs Blythe. I’ve always felt I’d like a big house. But with only us and Seraphine… and where was the money to come from? And, anyway, Anthony’d never