The ladies of St Mary Mead
Jul. 28th, 2013 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartIn case some of the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
picowrimo gang wants more context.
The usual suspects, as David had called them, had already assembled in the stuffy old drawing-room of the Vicarage when they entered. It was quite a gathering, under the presidency of the dear Griselda, who stood out of the flock of old crows like a fane in her very nice floral tea dress. With her red curls (their natural colour now discreetly refreshed a little by artificial means), that did not quite touch her shoulders, she looked almost too young for the old, dusty Vicarage. She’d been wearing her hair in the same fashion for at least twenty years, but it still suited her perfectly.
The Reverend Leonard Clement had yet to make an appearance – as he would unfailingly, Miss Marple knew; the Vicar was diligent in his duties toward his flock, no matter how tiresome he might find certain members of said flock. All the others, however, were already present and accounted for.
There was Mrs Martha Price-Ridley, for starters, better known as “that dreadful Price-Ridley” among those who’d ever suffered from her sharp tongue (and honestly, in all those years she’d spent in St Mary Mead, who hadn’t?) Once she’d been a tall, handsome, imposing woman, always smartly dressed and a weekly visitor of Mrs Jameson’s hairdressing parlour, so that her hairdo would always be perfect.
At the age of eighty-four, she was still tall, smartly dressed and perfectly coiffed. Her hair didn’t show the slightest touch of grey, having gone from the earlier pitch black to a softer, more moderate chestnut brown – beauty products were so much better and easier to apply in these days, one change that even the old ladies whole-heartedly welcomed.
But her face was wrinkled beyond what any amount of make-up could have concealed, she’d become somewhat bloated in her midriff, and she was suffering from a number of age-related illnesses, from arthritic joints through digestion problems to the occasional dizzy spell and an unreliable circulation. She was also wearing glasses that, unfortunately, no longer enabled her to do any stitching or knitting, and had picked up the habit of wearing lots of fake jewellery.
None of these unpleasantries would hinder her in doing what she felt was right, though. She still worked in her garden as much as she could, despite Dr. Haydock’s disapproval.
“That horrible old Leycock can’t be left unsupervised,” she explained to her friends. “He’d dig out all my rose bushes and plant cabbages instead.” As this was, unfortunately, very true, not to mention widely known in the entire village, Dr Haydock found himself short of real arguments whenever the topic came up.
She still attended to every single church service, unless seriously ill. She still regularly visited the graves of her late husband and son in the churchyard. And, of course. She still came to the Wednesday afternoon tea at the Vicarage each week.
Poor Miss Wetherby was sitting a little aside, in the Vicar’s own, most comfortable armchair. She had her hair freshly done for the only remaining event in her otherwise uneventful life, spent between hospital visits and sleepless nights. She had taken to wearing trousers lately, ostensibly to cover her dramatic weight loss, but could not quite hide her skeletal looks from the observant eye of her old friends. That she would still have her hair coloured was a bit pathetic, Miss Marple decided with tolerant sadness, but at least she was trying to beat age and illness that were ganging up on her.
Miss Amanda Hartnell, on the other hand – Mandy, as the others called her – was defiantly, gloriously full of energy, in spite of arthritic limbs, hearing problems and the glasses of which she needed stronger ones every other year. She, too, was of Miss Marple’s age but certainly didn’t look it. Short but trim, she concealed her hearing problem by playing special attention (“None of those hearing aids, dear, they are so clumsy; and they make the background noise much louder than anything you’d actually want to hear!”) Her perfectly coiffed hair was a rich, vibrant bronze, and her boundless energy (“I don’t have time to waste on arthritic pains, dear!”) made her appear much younger than the other ladies, even if all that inner energy often couldn’t force the aching joints to actually cooperate.
Not without help, most of the time.
The last in the… mature circle was Miss Hubbard, Miss Marpe’s best friend and the only other one who preferred greying to artificial hair colours. She was a friendly, somewhat child-like old lady, wearing a blue-and-white patterned dress that looked as if it had come from that cheap little second-hand shop in Market Basing, although Miss Marple happened to know that it had been custom made by a good, old-fashioned tailor in the same town.
Poor Marjorie, she always had such an unlucky hand at choosing her garderobe.
picowrimo gang wants more context.The usual suspects, as David had called them, had already assembled in the stuffy old drawing-room of the Vicarage when they entered. It was quite a gathering, under the presidency of the dear Griselda, who stood out of the flock of old crows like a fane in her very nice floral tea dress. With her red curls (their natural colour now discreetly refreshed a little by artificial means), that did not quite touch her shoulders, she looked almost too young for the old, dusty Vicarage. She’d been wearing her hair in the same fashion for at least twenty years, but it still suited her perfectly.
The Reverend Leonard Clement had yet to make an appearance – as he would unfailingly, Miss Marple knew; the Vicar was diligent in his duties toward his flock, no matter how tiresome he might find certain members of said flock. All the others, however, were already present and accounted for.
There was Mrs Martha Price-Ridley, for starters, better known as “that dreadful Price-Ridley” among those who’d ever suffered from her sharp tongue (and honestly, in all those years she’d spent in St Mary Mead, who hadn’t?) Once she’d been a tall, handsome, imposing woman, always smartly dressed and a weekly visitor of Mrs Jameson’s hairdressing parlour, so that her hairdo would always be perfect.
At the age of eighty-four, she was still tall, smartly dressed and perfectly coiffed. Her hair didn’t show the slightest touch of grey, having gone from the earlier pitch black to a softer, more moderate chestnut brown – beauty products were so much better and easier to apply in these days, one change that even the old ladies whole-heartedly welcomed.
But her face was wrinkled beyond what any amount of make-up could have concealed, she’d become somewhat bloated in her midriff, and she was suffering from a number of age-related illnesses, from arthritic joints through digestion problems to the occasional dizzy spell and an unreliable circulation. She was also wearing glasses that, unfortunately, no longer enabled her to do any stitching or knitting, and had picked up the habit of wearing lots of fake jewellery.
None of these unpleasantries would hinder her in doing what she felt was right, though. She still worked in her garden as much as she could, despite Dr. Haydock’s disapproval.
“That horrible old Leycock can’t be left unsupervised,” she explained to her friends. “He’d dig out all my rose bushes and plant cabbages instead.” As this was, unfortunately, very true, not to mention widely known in the entire village, Dr Haydock found himself short of real arguments whenever the topic came up.
She still attended to every single church service, unless seriously ill. She still regularly visited the graves of her late husband and son in the churchyard. And, of course. She still came to the Wednesday afternoon tea at the Vicarage each week.
Poor Miss Wetherby was sitting a little aside, in the Vicar’s own, most comfortable armchair. She had her hair freshly done for the only remaining event in her otherwise uneventful life, spent between hospital visits and sleepless nights. She had taken to wearing trousers lately, ostensibly to cover her dramatic weight loss, but could not quite hide her skeletal looks from the observant eye of her old friends. That she would still have her hair coloured was a bit pathetic, Miss Marple decided with tolerant sadness, but at least she was trying to beat age and illness that were ganging up on her.
Miss Amanda Hartnell, on the other hand – Mandy, as the others called her – was defiantly, gloriously full of energy, in spite of arthritic limbs, hearing problems and the glasses of which she needed stronger ones every other year. She, too, was of Miss Marple’s age but certainly didn’t look it. Short but trim, she concealed her hearing problem by playing special attention (“None of those hearing aids, dear, they are so clumsy; and they make the background noise much louder than anything you’d actually want to hear!”) Her perfectly coiffed hair was a rich, vibrant bronze, and her boundless energy (“I don’t have time to waste on arthritic pains, dear!”) made her appear much younger than the other ladies, even if all that inner energy often couldn’t force the aching joints to actually cooperate.
Not without help, most of the time.
The last in the… mature circle was Miss Hubbard, Miss Marpe’s best friend and the only other one who preferred greying to artificial hair colours. She was a friendly, somewhat child-like old lady, wearing a blue-and-white patterned dress that looked as if it had come from that cheap little second-hand shop in Market Basing, although Miss Marple happened to know that it had been custom made by a good, old-fashioned tailor in the same town.
Poor Marjorie, she always had such an unlucky hand at choosing her garderobe.
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