The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty [32]
“Adele has the schoolteacher’s low opinion of everybody,” said Miss Tennyson.
“It’s true they were a trifle more inelegant,” said Miss Adele. “But only a trifle.”
“The pitiful thing was, Fay didn’t know any better than the rest of ’em. She just supposed she did,” said Miss Tennyson.
“Did you hear her snub her sister? Refused to cry on her,” said old Mrs. Pease.
“Well, we all knew exactly what the sort of thing was that Fay’d be good for,” said Miss Tennyson. “Didn’t make it go any quicker when it came. That slap I gave her took the starch out of me.”
“Strangely enough,” said Miss Adele, “I think that carrying-on was Fay’s idea of giving a sad occasion its due. She was rising to it, splendidly.—By her lights!” she interrupted herself before the others could do it for her. “She wanted nothing but the best for her husband’s funeral, only the most expensive casket, the most choice cemetery plot—”
“Choice! It looked right out on the Interstate! Those horrible trucks made so much whine, not a thing Dr. Bolt was saying could be heard. Even from our good seats,” said Miss Tennyson.
“—and,” continued Miss Adele, “the most brokenhearted, most distraught behavior she could manage on the part of the widow.”
Singing over her words, the mockingbird poured out his voice without stopping.
“I could have broken her neck,” said Miss Tennyson.
“Well, you couldn’t expect her to stop being a Baptist,” said old Mrs. Pease.
“Well, of course I’m a Baptist,” said Miss Adele, the dimple coming into her cheek.
“Adele, you didn’t care for Fay’s behavior any more than the rest of us did,” said Miss Tennyson.
“I saw you have to sit down,” said old Mrs. Pease shrewdly.
“I give myself as bad a mark as anybody. Never fear,” said Miss Adele.
“Well, I’m not ashamed of anything I did,” said Miss Tennyson. “And I felt still more ashamed for Fay when she upped and told us goodbye and went off with the rest of the Chisoms. I reckon she thought we might not let her go. But we didn’t beg her any too hard to stay, did we?” Miss Tennyson sank back deeper into the old chair.
“As a matter of fact,” said Miss Adele, “Fay stuck to her guns longer than the rest of us, the ones who knew Judge McKelva better, and knew everything better. Major Bullock got outright tipsy, and everybody that opened their mouths said as near the wrong thing as they could possibly manage.”
“Adele! You just dearly love to punish yourself. You hate what you’re saying, just as much as we do,” declared Miss Tennyson.
“But I believe it.”
“Well, I’m going right on blaming the Chisoms,” said old Mrs. Pease. “They ought to have stayed home in the first place. All of ’em.”
“I further believe Fay thought she was rising in the estimation of Mount Salus, there in front of all his lifelong friends,” said Miss Adele. “And on what she thought was the prime occasion for doing it.”
“Well, she needed somebody to tell her how to act,” said Miss Tennyson flatly.
“I gathered from the evidence we were given that Fay was emulating her own mother,” said Miss Adele, while the mockingbird sang.
“Why, Fay declared right in front of old Mrs. Chisom and all that she wished her mother hadn’t come!” said Miss Tennyson.
“Nevertheless, that’s who she emulated,” said Miss Adele. “We can’t find fault with doing that, can we, Laurel?”
Laurel, who had worked her way as far as the kitchen door, sat on the back step and gazed at the ladies, all four.
“I got the notion if Fay hadn’t turned around quick, they might’ve just settled in here with her,” said old Mrs. Pease. “When old Mrs. What’s-her-name stepped off the reach of the front porch, I had an anxious moment, I can tell you.”
“Are we all going to have to feel sorry for her?” asked Miss Tennyson.
“If there’s nothing else to do, there’s no help for it,” said Miss Adele. “Is there, Laurel?”
“Well, answer!” exclaimed Miss Tennyson. “Are you prepared now to pity her, Laurel?”
“Cat’s got her tongue,” said old Mrs. Pease.
“I hope I never see her again,” said Laurel.
“There, girlie, you got it out,” said Miss