hort, she was a renowned
social bully, and like most bullies she gained her ends by scaring the
lives out of meeker and better-bred people than herself. These latter
feared her 'scenes' as she rejoiced in them, and as she knew the pasts
of her friends from their cradle upwards, she usually contrived, by a
pitiless use of her famous memory, to put to rout anyone so ill-advised
as to attempt a stand against her domineering authority. When her tall,
gaunt figure--invariably arrayed in the blackest of black silks--was
sighted in a room, those present either scuttled out of the way or
judiciously held their peace, for everyone knew Mrs Pansey's talent for
twisting the simplest observation into some evil shape calculated to get
its author into trouble. She excelled in this particular method of
making mischief. Possessed of ample means and ample leisure, both of
these helped her materially to build up her reputation of a
philanthropic bully. She literally swooped down upon the poor, taking
one and all in charge to be fed, physicked, worked and guided according
to her own ideas. In return for benefits conferred, she demanded an
unconditional surrender of free will. Nobody was to have an opinion but
Mrs Pansey; nobody knew what was good for them unless their ideas
coincided with those of their patroness--which they never did. Mrs
Pansey had never been a mother, yet, in her own opinion, there was
nothing about children she did not know. She had not studied medicine,
therefore she dubbed the doctors a pack of fools, saying she could cure
where they failed. Be they tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, Mrs
Pansey invariably knew more about their vocations than they themselves
did or were ever likely to do. In short, this celebrated lady--for her
reputation was more than local--was what the American so succinctly
terms a 'she-boss'; and in a less enlightened age she would indubitably
have been ducked in the Beorflete river as a meddlesome, scolding,
clattering jade. Indeed, had anyone been so brave as to ignore the
flight of time and thus suppress her, the righteousness of the act would
most assuredly have remained unquestioned.

Now, as Miss Norsham wanted, for her own purposes, to 'know the ropes,'
she was fortunate to come within the gloom of Mrs Pansey's silken robes.
For Mrs Pansey certainly knew everyone, if she did not know everything,
and whomsoever she chaperoned had to be received by Beorminster society,
whether Beorminster