Miss Muriel and Other Stories by Ann Petry

Author:Ann Petry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Bones of Louella Brown

OLD PEABODY AND YOUNG WHIFFLE, partners in the firm of Whiffle and Peabody, Incorporated, read with mild interest the first article about Bedford Abbey which appeared in the Boston papers. But each day thereafter the papers printed one or two items about this fabulous project. And as they learned more about it, Old Peabody and Young Whiffle became quite excited.

For Bedford Abbey was a private chapel, a chapel which would be used solely for the weddings and funerals of the Bedford family—the most distinguished family in Massachusetts.

What was more important, the Abbey was to become the final resting-place for all the Bedfords who had passed on to greater glory and been buried in the family plot in Yew Tree Cemetery. These long-dead Bedfords were to be exhumed and reburied in the crypt under the marble floor of the chapel. Thus Bedford Abbey would be officially opened with the most costly and the most elaborate funeral service ever held in Boston.

As work on the Abbey progressed, Young Whiffle (who was seventy-five) and Old Peabody (who was seventy-nine) frowned and fumed while they searched the morning papers for some indication of the date of this service.

Whiffle and Peabody were well aware that they owned the oldest and the most exclusive undertaking firm in the city; and having handled the funerals of most of the Bedfords, they felt that, in all logic, this stupendous funeral ceremony should be managed by their firm. But they were uneasy. For Governor Bedford (he was still called Governor though it had been some thirty years since he held office) was unpredictable. And most unfortunately, the choice of undertakers would be left to the Governor, for the Abbey was his brain-child.

A month dragged by, during which Young Whiffle and Old Peabody set an all-time record for nervous tension. They snapped at each other, and nibbled their fingernails, and cleared their throats, with the most appalling regularity.

It was well into June before the Governor’s secretary finally telephoned. He informed Old Peabody, who quivered with delight, that Governor Bedford had named Whiffle and Peabody as the undertakers for the service which would be held at the Abbey on the twenty-first of June.

When the Bedford exhumation order was received, Old Peabody produced an exhumation order for the late Louella Brown. It had occurred to him that this business of exhuming the Bedfords offered an excellent opportunity for exhuming Louella, with very little additional expense. Thus he could rectify a truly terrible error in judgment made by his father, years ago.

“We can pick ’em all up at once,” Old Peabody said, handing the Brown exhumation order to Young Whiffle. “I want to move Louella Brown out of Yew Tree Cemetery. We can put her in one of the less well-known burying places on the outskirts of the city. That’s where she should have been put in the first place. But we will, of course, check up on her as usual.”

“Who was Louella Brown?” asked Young Whiffle.

“Oh, she was once our laundress.

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