Mark Joyner shook hands cordially with his nephew and said he was glad he had been able to come down. His manner was simple, dignified, and reserved, eloquently expressive of quiet grief, for he had always been genuinely fond of his older sister. But Mag, his wife, who for fifty years had carried on a nagging, internecine warfare with Aunt Maw, had appointed herself chief mourner and was obviously enjoying the role. During the interminable service, when the Baptist minister in his twanging, nasal voice recited his long eulogy and went back over the events of Aunt Maw’s life, Mag would break forth now and then in fits of loud weeping and would ostentatiously throw back her heavy black veil and swab vigorously with her handkerchief at her red and swollen eyes.
The minister, with the unconscious callousness of self-righteousness, rehearsed again the story of the family scandal. He told how George Webber’s father had abandoned his wife, Amelia Joyner, to live in open shame with another woman, and how Amelia had shortly, afterwards “died of a broken heart”. He told how “Brother Mark Joyner and his God-fearing wife, Sister Maggie Joyner,” had been filled with righteous wrath and had gone to court and wrested the motherless boy from the sinful keeping of his father; and how “this good woman who now lies dead before us” had taken charge of her sister’s son and brought him up in a Christian home. And he said be was glad to see that the young man who had been the recipient of this dutiful charity had come home again to pay his last debt of gratitude at the bier of the one to whom he owed so much.
Throughout all this Mag continued to choke and sputter with histrionic sorrow, and George sat there biting his lips, his eyes fixed on the floor, perspiration streaming from him, his jaws clenched hard, his face purple with shame and anger and nausea.
The afternoon wore on, and at last the service was over. People began to issue from the house, and the procession formed for the long, slow ride to the cemetery. With immense relief George escaped from the immediate family group and went over to Margaret Shepperton, and the two of them took possession of one of the limousines that had been hired for the occasion.
Just as the car was about to drive off and take its place in the line, a woman opened the door and got in with them. She was Mrs. Delia Flood, an old friend of Aunt Maw’s. George had known her all his life.
“Why, hello there, young man,” she said to George as she climbed in and sat down beside him “This would’ve been a proud day for your Aunt Maw if she could’ve known you’d come all the way back home to be here at her funeral. She thought the world of you, boy.” She nodded absent-mindedly to Margaret. “I saw you had an empty place here, so I said, ‘It’s a pity to let it go to waste. Hop right in,’ I said. ‘Don’t stand on ceremony. It might as well be you,’ I said, ‘as the next fellow.’”
Mrs. Delia Flood was a childless widow well past middle age, short, sturdy, and physically stolid, with jet black hair and small, piercing brown eyes, and a tongue that was never still. She would fasten upon anyone she could catch and corner, and would talk on and on in a steady monotone that had neither beginning nor end. She was a woman of property, and her favourite topic of conversation was real estate. In fact, long before the present era of speculation and sky-rocketing prices, she had had a mania for buying and selling land, and was a shrewd judge of values. With some sixth sense she had always known what direction the development of the growing town was likely to take, and when things happened as she predicted, it was usually found that she had bought up choice sites which she was able to sell for much more than she had paid for them. She lived simply and frugally, but she was generally believed to be well off.
For a little while Mrs. Flood sat in contemplative silence. But as the procession moved off and slowly made its way through the streets of the town, she began to glance sharply out of the windows on both sides, and before long, without any preliminary, she launched forth in a commentary on the history of every piece of property they passed. It was constant, panoramic, and exhaustive. She talked incessantly, gesturing briefly and casually with her hand, only pausing from time to time to nod deliberately to herself in a movement of strong affirmation.