Anne of Ingleside - L. M. Montgomery [99]
‘Such a pity he had to leave it,’ said Celia Reese.
‘His brother Jeffry didn’t leave a cent,’ said Mrs Clow. ‘He was the ne’er-do-well of that family I must admit. Goodness knows he did enough laughing. Spent everything he earned… hail-fellow-well-met with everyone… and died penniless. What did he get out of life with all his flinging about and laughing?’
‘Not much perhaps,’ said Myra, ‘but think of all he put into it. He was always giving… cheer, sympathy, friendliness, even money. He was rich in friends at least… and Alexander never had a friend in his life.’
‘Jeff’s friends didn’t bury him,’ retorted Mrs Allan. ‘Alexander had to do that… and put up a real fine tombstone too. It cost a hundred dollars.’
‘But when Jeff asked him for a loan of one hundred to pay for an operation that might have saved his life, didn’t Alexander refuse it?’ asked Celia Drew.
‘Come, come, we’re getting too uncharitable,’ protested Mrs Carr. ‘After all, we don’t live in a world of forget-me-nots and daisies, and everyone has some faults.’
‘Lem Anderson is marrying Dorothy Clark today,’ said Mrs Millison, thinking it was high time the conversation took on a more cheerful line. ‘And it isn’t a year since he swore he would blow out his brains if Jane Elliott wouldn’t marry him.’
‘Young men do say such odd things,’ said Mrs Chubb. ‘They’ve kept it very close… it never leaked out till three weeks ago that they were engaged. I was talking to his mother last week and she never hinted at a wedding so soon. I am not sure that I care much for a woman who can be such a Sphinx.’
‘I am surprised at Dorothy Clark taking him,’ said Agatha Drew. ‘I thought last spring that she and Frank Clow were going to make a match of it.’
‘I heard Dorothy said that Frank was the best match, but she really couldn’t abide the thought of seeing that nose sticking out over the sheet every morning when she woke up.’
Mrs Elder Baxter gave a spinsterish shudder and refused to join in the laughter.
‘You shouldn’t say such things before a young girl like Edith,’ said Celia, winking around the quilt.
‘Is Ada Clark engaged yet?’ asked Emma Pollock.
‘No, not exactly,’ said Mrs Millison. ‘Just hopeful. But she’ll land him yet. Those girls all have a knack of picking husbands. Her sister Pauline married the best farm over the harbour.’
‘Pauline is pretty, but she is as full of silly notions as ever,’ said Mrs Milgrave. ‘Sometimes I think she’ll never learn any sense.’
‘Oh, yes, she will,’ said Myra Murray. ‘Some day she will have children of her own and she will learn wisdom from them… as you and I did.’
‘Where are Lem and Dorothy going to live?’ asked Mrs Meade.
‘Oh, Lem has bought a farm at the Upper Glen. The old Carey place, you know, where poor Mrs Roger Carey murdered her husband.’
‘Murdered her husband!’
‘Oh, I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it, but everybody thought she went a little too far. Yes, weed-killer in his tea-cup… or was it his soup? Everybody knew it, but nothing was ever done about it. The spool, please, Celia.’
‘But do you mean to say, Mrs Millison, that she was never tried… or punished?’ gasped Mrs Campbell.
‘Well, nobody wanted to get a neighbour into a scrape like that. The Careys were well connected in the Upper Glen. Besides, she was driven to desperation. Of course, nobody approves of murder as a habit, but if ever a man deserved to be murdered Roger Carey did. She went to the States and married again. She’s been dead for years. Her second outlived her. It all happened when I was a girl. They used to say Roger Carey’s ghost walked.’
‘Surely nobody believes in ghosts in this enlightened age,’ said Mrs Baxter.
‘Why aren’t we to believe in ghosts?’ demanded Tillie MacAllister. ‘Ghosts are interesting. I know a man who was haunted by a ghost that always laughed at him… sneering like. It used to make him so mad. The scissors please, Mrs MacDougall.’
The little bride had to be asked for the scissors twice, and handed them over blushing deeply. She was not yet used to being called Mrs MacDougall.