Leading Lady by Lawana Blackwell

Author:Lawana Blackwell [Lawana Blackwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781441270979
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-22T18:48:15+00:00

Twenty-Two

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die . . .’ ”

Bernard’s voice filled the nave of Holy Cross Chapel in the village of Gleadless, five miles south of Sheffield. Father’s associates at Sun Insurance in Sheffield were there. Aunt Virginia and Uncle James, Catherine and Hugh and their three sons. Jewel and Grady. Christina Smith and Georgiana Crane, cousins-twice-removed on Mother’s side, with their husbands and children.

Mr. Rowley, manager of Sun Insurance in London, with his wife.

Father had said it was decent of them to come, considering Mr. Rowley had been forced to give Douglas the sack for missing so much work. It was only for her father’s sake that Muriel had not ordered the couple to leave; however, she had treated them with no more than icy civility, even when Mrs. Rowley gushed that she had enjoyed Lady Audley’s Secret so much that she bought tickets for her grown children and their spouses.

“ ‘. . . time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance . . . ’ ”

With typical British ingenuity, the mourning industry marketed black handkerchiefs that would not stand out against mourning clothes. Muriel watched her mother beside her, so frail and crooked, wipe her lined cheeks with one, watched her father blow his nose into another.

We don’t even have a body to bury, Muriel thought. No grave to visit. He lay in ground that had never been home to him, surrounded by strangers.

After the memorial, people came to her parents’ house. Servants passed around trays of little sandwiches and cakes. At length the men gathered in the sitting room, the women in the parlour. Both rooms were equally somber, but at least some of the men had the distraction of their cigarettes and pipes. And then the guests left, a few at a time, their relief to be doing so visible through the cracks of their somber veneers.

Through it all Muriel’s parents moved about like sleepwalkers. Mother’s doctor had given her a sedative this morning, but even Father’s motions and speech were sluggish. Wednesday morning, Jewel, Catherine, and their families left again for London, and Uncle James left for the school of which he was headmaster outside Hath ersage, though Aunt Virginia stayed on. Without the distraction of so many visitors, sadness pressed down upon the house and settled into the corners.

Only the children were spared—Georgiana, and Bernard’s little Sally. Nanny Prescott and Agatha kept the two out in the garden as much as possible. Muriel envied their innocent ignorance of the trag edy.

Condolence letters arrived daily. Bernard and Aunt Virginia were the only ones to open them, though occasionally Mother would have one read aloud to her, then dissolve into tears. Muriel could not bring herself to read any, for what could anyone write that would make her grieve for Douglas any less? Bernard was mindful

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