kev67
05-29-2014, 03:02 PM
This happens near the end of the book, so don't read if you don't want it given away.
Poor old Mr Hale died while he was visiting his friend, Mr Bell, in Oxford. Not that he's very old, actually, only in his fifties. While Mr Bell and Mr Thornton attended his funeral, Margaret Hale seems not to have. She was understandably very distressed; so much so, that her aunt was called up to Milton to look after her. I was a little surprised that Mr Hale's body was not brought back to Milton, because surely he would have wanted to be buried beside his wife. Perhaps that was not the custom then. I would have thought it was possible, because wouldn't embalming have kept the body from deteriorating for long enough? Maybe the railway companies refused to transport corpses.
Poor old Mr Hale died while he was visiting his friend, Mr Bell, in Oxford. Not that he's very old, actually, only in his fifties. While Mr Bell and Mr Thornton attended his funeral, Margaret Hale seems not to have. She was understandably very distressed; so much so, that her aunt was called up to Milton to look after her. I was a little surprised that Mr Hale's body was not brought back to Milton, because surely he would have wanted to be buried beside his wife. Perhaps that was not the custom then. I would have thought it was possible, because wouldn't embalming have kept the body from deteriorating for long enough? Maybe the railway companies refused to transport corpses.