Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_01 by Crewel World Page B

noticed he had covered the beautiful funeral urn with a white cloth heavily embroidered in gold. What does he think this is? thought Betsy angrily. We’re here to bury Margot, not confirm her.
    A small, good choir did a lovely arrangement of “Amazing Grace,” which was not spoiled by everyone joining in. Except Betsy, whose breathing had gone all strange, so that she couldn’t sing. I’m going to cry at last, she thought. But she didn’t.
    The first reading, from Proverbs, was done by Mayor Jamison. It was the one suggested by Rettger.
    A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her ....
She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands ....
    Some in the congregation began reacting with sounds suspiciously like snickers.
    She gets up while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls. ...
She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
    Now Betsy was sure she heard a giggle.
    She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
Her husband is respected at the city gate,
Where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them.
And supplies the merchants with sashes —
    That last line sent everyone over the border and there was audible laughter. The mayor himself was grinning. Betsy felt her cheeks flame. How dare they! And how dare Rettger persuade her to allow this reading! She wanted to crawl under the pew—no, she wanted to stand up on it and shout at them to shut up, shut up! But she sat in shamed silence as the reading went on and on.
    She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
    Betsy heard a sound and looked over. She saw Jill and Shelly and some other women. Tears were streaming down their smiling faces. Those tears gave her the courage to sit through the rest of the service.
    The urn was carried out in Mayor Jamison’s arms like a stiffly wrapped baby, the priest leading the way, the choir singing, “All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” No, no, no, thought Betsy, her heart a stone in her breast, not alleluia, how can they sing alleluia!
    After the ugly work at the cemetery, Betsy sat on a metal folding chair and looked at the raw earth covering the gorgeous urn she’d paid so much money for, that contained all that was left of her beloved sister. Everyone else had gone now, gone to eat and drink and be glad it wasn’t they who were reduced to ashes and buried deep underground.
    She couldn’t stay here, not in a town that turned a funeral into a joke followed by a party.
    But what was she going to do? Where was she going to go?
    She sat so long that her joints stiffened. It was hard to rise from the chair, and her knees were so stiff she nearly fell making her way to the narrow dirt lane that wound around the hill and down to the street, down which she stumbled, back to the empty apartment, there to fall across her bed and descend immediately into sleep.
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    Hudson Earlie stood beside the coffee urn, cup and saucer in hand, watching the crowd. Big turnout, which was to be expected, of course. And it had gotten cheerful, as these things tended to do. He hadn’t seen the grieving sister, though. Not a bad-looking woman, if you liked them with a little meat on their bones, which he did when no one was looking. She had some intelligence and sophistication to her, too, which he also liked occasionally.
    But she was too old, only five or six years younger