“Jane was grateful for the quietness and privacy afforded in the house by the death of her husband’s father, and knew that James would be hurt to think that she greeted the death so gladly. She thought tenderly of how she would ease her husband through his loss.Jane was astonished, therefore, when later that day she found the old man’s tobacco pouch and pipe under a cushion where he had tucked them away: when she took them in her hands she began to cry uncontrollably, so that it was James who ha...d to comfort her. The early elation passed very quickly, and Jane felt a deep sense of loss. She had not realized how much she depended upon his company while she did household tasks around the kitchen, and James and Gerald were out working in the fields, had not realized until now, when it was too late and he was gone.But she felt anger too, for she envied James his father’s death as much as she had envied him his life. He had had the comfort of living with his parents for over twenty years, and now he had had the further comfort of their deaths and burials.‘Being Jane’ had always meant being on more than nodding terms with death: it had meant being familiar with it in a very particular way.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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