Posted May 9, 2022 | Arabella Mudd With: Horace & Abigail Potee & Mr Jolly
When Mr. Fortner had been so nice and kind about Arabella's decision to leave the saloon to work daylight hours with Mr Jolly in the undertakers, she had, just for a second there, wondered if she had been wrong about the man. Sure, it was fine for her to just come back in the evenings to play for Miss Mundee, nah, it didn't matter at all that they'd have to find some new drudge to take over the spittoon-emptying, floor scrubbing, latrine-cleansing part of her duties. Franklin had been charm itself.
However, the first 'customer' she had to deal with at the funeral parlour, lying there stark white and naked on the slab, reminded her of the other side of Fortner's personality: the grasping, single-minded, even murderous drive that had caused him to cheat Horace Potee out of his house and home and livelihood.
Maude looked so small and thin and emaciated lying there, once Arabella had removed the clothing in which she had been delivered to them. Little things struck her as sad as she stripped the corpse that until two days ago had been a living breathing woman with whom she had spoken, laughed, struggled even, on the fateful night. A stocking darned with the wrong coloured wool, through want of the right tone. The pantalets, soiled beyond repair when she had hanged herself, a small brooch with an old, old tiny painted portrait in it of who knew whom? And the grisly marks around her throat where she had dangled, choking to death while her husband threw way their lives.
"All right Maude, I reckon I'll wash your hair first, then that can be drying while I wash the rest of you. Now, don't you worry about Mr. Jolly or the boy Raymond coming in while you're all undressed like that, 'cause that's why Mr Jolly hired me, see, so there's no questions of impropriety with ladies in his care. He's very particular about that sorta thing. So you just rest there nice and mild and I'll make sure you're all nice and clean and dressed up in your best frock and you're just going to look so nice and pretty when Mr Potee and little Abigail come to see you later, y'hear?" she chattered kindly to the dead woman, placing a bowl of fresh water near her hair and undoing it gently.
By the time she had finished, Maude truly was a work of art: best dress, Summer flowers in her hair: Arabella was hobbled by the fact that she couldn't use make-up on her (the puritanical Maude would have been horrified by the use of 'paint'), but otherwise, it was a pretty good job. Maude Potee probably looked prettier than she had done in life for the last ten years. Further, Arabella had eschewed the sickly stench of lilies, so redolent of the charnel house of nineteenth century mortuary practice and kept her on the slab rather than in the coffin. With a neat velvet band hiding her chaffed hanging injuries, it just looked like she had nodded off to sleep on one of the church pews after one of the Reverend Luke's more boring Sunday sermons.
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Mr Jolly, Raymond and herself had a quick lunch of pasties from the diner and then they were ready for the chime of the bell over the front door of the funeral parlour as Potee and his daughter made their appearance.
Mr Jolly, as proprietor, greeted the widower, of course, but soon handed him over to Arabella.
"Miss Mudd has been attending to your dear wife all morning, Mister Potee, she will show you both through." Arabella gulped. This was the difficult part.
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