the tender way the woman cared for old Reverend Hooper when he became sick.
Aggie admitted now that Lily had turned out to be an almost perfect parson’s wife. She fully supported her husband’s work in the parish, showing kindness and understanding to those in need. No one was better at smoothing ruffled feathers than she was. She had endless patience with the difficult wealthy parishioners who believed the parson was their sole property, and worked tirelessly at making the parsonage more comfortable and inviting. Since she’d arrived she’d made new curtains, covers for old chairs, and introduced Aggie to new dishes to cook. Her only real fault was that she was so pernickety about trifles. Nothing must be wasted, not a crust of bread or left-over vegetables. If there was one small mark on her husband’s surplice it had to be boiled, starched and ironed again. Everything had to gleam, be it floors, furniture, glass or silver. To her dirt was the Devil.
Yet something had changed in her since Tabitha was born. While ecstatically happy with her long-awaited child, she seemed so troubled and fearful too. She could change like the weather, one day kind and thoughtful to everyone, the next a shrew. One minute she was complimenting Aggie on her cooking, the next everything was wrong. But the worst was her ridiculous fears about disease – she seemed to think the little one was so fragile that even a common housefly might kill her!
When Aggie thought what her children had to contend with in their early days, hunger, cold, rats climbing over them whilethey slept, left alone for hours while she tried to find work to keep them from the poor-house! Yet they’d grown up healthy, all off her hands now, one in the navy, one in Australia, and the two girls married off with homes of their own. In her view Tabitha was overprotected, fussed over from morning till night, and that was far more unhealthy than a bit of dirt.
‘Reverend and Mrs Milson want to see you when you’ve finished,’ Aggie said as she passed the girl a slice of gooseberry pie. She wanted to say she was sorry for being so frosty at first, she of all people had no right to be like that with someone poor. But Aggie wasn’t one for retracting anything. Besides, she was never going to see the girl again and she had her position to think of. ‘So mind your manners, and don’t go calling her “missus”, it’s madam and sir!’
Matilda wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of ‘manners’. Was it just saying please and thank you? Or was there more to it? As she made her way up the narrow hallway to the parlour at the front of the house where Aggie said she was to knock, then wait to be called in, she wondered if she was supposed to curtsey, or was that only to proper gentry?
She thought this house was splendid. There was a lovely lavender smell and everything was shiny, from the banisters to the floor beneath her feet. She didn’t much care for the pictures, though, they were all dark and gloomy, especially a long narrow one of a lot of men sitting along a table, all looking at a man in the middle with sort of sunrays round his head. If she ever got rich enough to live in a house like this, she’d have bright paintings of happy scenes.
‘Come in!’ Giles Milson called out in answer to her tentative knock.
The first thing that struck Matilda about the sitting-room was how hot it was, the fire blazing as though it was mid-winter. The walls too were a deep dark red which made it seem even hotter, and there was so much furniture she could barely see more than a foot or two of floor.
The parson was sitting in a high-backed chair on one side of the fire, his wife on the other in a lower one. Matilda supposed Tabitha had been taken upstairs for a rest.
The couple both stared at her for a moment before speaking, then Lily excused herself. ‘I beg your pardon, Matilda, it’s justthat you look so different with your hair loose. What a pretty colour it
Aggie admitted now that Lily had turned out to be an almost perfect parson’s wife. She fully supported her husband’s work in the parish, showing kindness and understanding to those in need. No one was better at smoothing ruffled feathers than she was. She had endless patience with the difficult wealthy parishioners who believed the parson was their sole property, and worked tirelessly at making the parsonage more comfortable and inviting. Since she’d arrived she’d made new curtains, covers for old chairs, and introduced Aggie to new dishes to cook. Her only real fault was that she was so pernickety about trifles. Nothing must be wasted, not a crust of bread or left-over vegetables. If there was one small mark on her husband’s surplice it had to be boiled, starched and ironed again. Everything had to gleam, be it floors, furniture, glass or silver. To her dirt was the Devil.
Yet something had changed in her since Tabitha was born. While ecstatically happy with her long-awaited child, she seemed so troubled and fearful too. She could change like the weather, one day kind and thoughtful to everyone, the next a shrew. One minute she was complimenting Aggie on her cooking, the next everything was wrong. But the worst was her ridiculous fears about disease – she seemed to think the little one was so fragile that even a common housefly might kill her!
When Aggie thought what her children had to contend with in their early days, hunger, cold, rats climbing over them whilethey slept, left alone for hours while she tried to find work to keep them from the poor-house! Yet they’d grown up healthy, all off her hands now, one in the navy, one in Australia, and the two girls married off with homes of their own. In her view Tabitha was overprotected, fussed over from morning till night, and that was far more unhealthy than a bit of dirt.
‘Reverend and Mrs Milson want to see you when you’ve finished,’ Aggie said as she passed the girl a slice of gooseberry pie. She wanted to say she was sorry for being so frosty at first, she of all people had no right to be like that with someone poor. But Aggie wasn’t one for retracting anything. Besides, she was never going to see the girl again and she had her position to think of. ‘So mind your manners, and don’t go calling her “missus”, it’s madam and sir!’
Matilda wasn’t sure of the exact meaning of ‘manners’. Was it just saying please and thank you? Or was there more to it? As she made her way up the narrow hallway to the parlour at the front of the house where Aggie said she was to knock, then wait to be called in, she wondered if she was supposed to curtsey, or was that only to proper gentry?
She thought this house was splendid. There was a lovely lavender smell and everything was shiny, from the banisters to the floor beneath her feet. She didn’t much care for the pictures, though, they were all dark and gloomy, especially a long narrow one of a lot of men sitting along a table, all looking at a man in the middle with sort of sunrays round his head. If she ever got rich enough to live in a house like this, she’d have bright paintings of happy scenes.
‘Come in!’ Giles Milson called out in answer to her tentative knock.
The first thing that struck Matilda about the sitting-room was how hot it was, the fire blazing as though it was mid-winter. The walls too were a deep dark red which made it seem even hotter, and there was so much furniture she could barely see more than a foot or two of floor.
The parson was sitting in a high-backed chair on one side of the fire, his wife on the other in a lower one. Matilda supposed Tabitha had been taken upstairs for a rest.
The couple both stared at her for a moment before speaking, then Lily excused herself. ‘I beg your pardon, Matilda, it’s justthat you look so different with your hair loose. What a pretty colour it
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