Anne of Windy Poplars - L. M. Montgomery [23]
‘ “Sacred to the memory of Miss Kinsey”,’ read Anne in amazement. ‘What an extraordinary inscription! Had she no other name?’
‘If she had nobody ever knew it,’ said Miss Valentine. ‘She came from Nova Scotia and worked for the George Pringles for forty years. She gave her name as Miss Kinsey, and everybody called her that. She died suddenly, and then it was discovered that nobody knew her first name, and she had no relation that anybody could find. So they put that on her stone. The George Pringles buried her very nicely, and paid for the monument. She was a faithful, hard-working creature, but if you’d ever seen her you’d have thought she was born Miss Kinsey… The James Morleys are here. I was at their golden wedding. Such a to-do: gifts and speeches and flowers, and their children all home, and them smiling and bowing, and just hating each other as hard as they could.’
‘Hating each other?’
‘Bitterly, my dear. Everyone knew it. They had for years and years – almost all their married life, in fact. They quarrelled on the way home from church after the wedding. I often wonder how they manage to lie here so peaceably side by side.’
Again Anne shivered. How terrible – sitting opposite each other at table, lying down beside each other at night, going to church with their babies to be christened, and hating each other through it all! Yet they must have loved to begin with. Was it possible she and Gilbert could ever – Nonsense! The Pringles were getting on her nerves.
‘Handsome John MacTabb is buried here. He was always suspected of being the reason why Annetta Kennedy drowned herself. The MacTabbs were all handsome, but you could never believe a word they said. There used to be a stone here for his Uncle Samuel, who was reported drowned at sea fifty years ago. When he turned up alive the family took the stone down. The man they bought it from wouldn’t take it back, so Mrs Samuel used it for a baking board. Talk about a marble slab for mixing on! That old tombstone was just fine, she said. The MacTabb children were always bringing cookies to school with raised letters and figures on them – scraps of the epitaph. They gave them away real generous, but I never could bring myself to eat one. I’m peculiar that way… Mr Harley Pringle is here. He had to wheel Peter MacTabb down Main Street once, in a wheelbarrow, wearing a bonnet, for an election bet. All Summerside turned out to see it – except the Pringles, of course. They nearly died of shame… Milly Pringle is here. I was very fond of Milly, even if she was a Pringle. She was so pretty, and as light-footed as a fairy. Sometimes I think, my dear, on nights like this she must slip out of her grave and dance like she used to do. But I suppose a Christian shouldn’t be harbouring such thoughts… This is Herb Pringle’s grave. He was one of the jolly Pringles. He always made you laugh. He laughed right out in church once, when the mouse dropped out of the flowers on Meta Pringle’s hat when she bowed in prayer. I didn’t feel much like laughing. I didn’t know where the mouse had gone. I pulled my skirts tight about my ankles and held them there till church was out; but it spoiled the sermon for me. Herb sat behind me, and such a shout as he gave! People who couldn’t see the mouse thought he’d gone crazy. It seemed to me that laugh of his couldn’t die. If he was alive he’d stand up for you, Sarah or no Sarah… This, of course, is Captain Abraham Pringle’s monument.
It dominated the whole graveyard. Four receding platforms of stone formed a square pedestal, on which rose a huge pillar of marble topped with a ridiculous draped urn, beneath which a fat cherub was blowing a horn.
‘How ugly!’ said Anne candidly.
‘Oh, do you think so?’ Miss Valentine seemed rather shocked. ‘It was thought very handsome when it