Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [96]
‘What I had against Mr Dawson,’ said Miss Cornelia, ‘was the unmerciful length of his prayers at a funeral. It actually came to such a pass that people said they envied the corpse. He surpassed himself at Letty Grant’s funeral. I saw her mother was on the point of fainting, so I gave him a nudge and told him he’d prayed long enough.’
‘He buried my poor Jarvis,’ said Mrs George Carr, tears dropping down. She always cried when she spoke of her husband, although he had been dead for twenty years.
‘His brother was a minister, too,’ said Christine Marsh. ‘He was in the Glen when I was a girl. We had a concert in the hall one night and as he was one of the speakers he was sitting on the platform. He was as nervous as his brother and he kept fidgeting his chair farther and farther back and all at once he went, chair and all, clean over the edge on the bank of flowers and house-plants we had arranged around the base. All that could be seen of him was his feet sticking up above the platform. Somehow, it always spoiled his preaching for me after that. His feet were so big.’
‘The Lane funeral might have been a disappointment,’ said Emma Pollock, ‘but at least it was better than not having any funeral at all. You remember the Cromwell mix-up?’
There was a chorus of reminiscent laughter. ‘Let us hear the story,’ said Mrs Campbell. ‘Remember, Mrs Pollock, I’m a stranger here, and all the family sagas are quite unknown to me.’
Emma didn’t know what ‘sagas’ meant, but she loved to tell a story.
‘Abner Cromwell lived over near Lowbridge on one of the biggest farms in that district and he was an M.P.P. in those days. He was one of the biggest frogs in the Tory puddle and acquainted with everybody of any importance on the Island. He was married to Julia Flagg, whose mother was a Reese and her grandmother was a Clow, so they were connected with almost every family in Four Winds as well. One day a notice came out in the Daily Enterprise… Mr Abner Cromwell had died suddenly at Lowbridge and his funeral would be held at two o’clock the next afternoon. Somehow the Abner Cromwells missed seeing the notice… and of course there were no rural telephones in those days. The next morning Abner left for Kingsport to attend a Liberal convention. At two o’clock people began arriving for the funeral, coming early to get a good seat, thinking there’d be such a crowd on account of Abner being such a prominent man. And a crowd there was, believe you me. For miles around the roads were just a string of buggies, and people kept pouring in till about three. Mrs Abner was just about crazy trying to make them believe her husband wasn’t dead. Some wouldn’t believe her at first… she said to me in tears that they seemed to think she’d made away with the corpse… and when they were convinced they acted as if they thought Abner ought to be dead. And they tramped all over the lawn flower-beds she was so proud of. Any number of distant relations arrived too, expecting supper and beds for the night, and she hadn’t much cooked… Julie was never very forehanded, that has to be admitted. When Abner arrived home two days afterwards he found her in bed with nervous prostration, and she was months getting over it. She didn’t eat a thing for six weeks… well, hardly anything. I heard she said if there really had been a funeral she couldn’t have been more upset. But I never believed she really did say it.’
‘You can’t be sure,’ said Mrs William McCreery. ‘People do say such awful things. When they’re upset the truth pops out. Julie’s sister Clarice actually went and sang in the choir as usual the first Sunday after her husband was buried.’
‘Not even a husband’s funeral could damp Clarice down long,’ said Agatha Drew. ‘There was nothing solid about her. Always dancing and singing.’
‘I used to dance and