Question

It would never do for them to find you in colours with grandfather lying dead upstairs what is the meaning this

Answer 1

When grandfather is dead, people would be mourning and not celebrating. So when you are in colours, it means that you are happy and celebrating something. And it wouldn't be proper to be celebrating when someone is mourning

Answer 2

Amelia Slater, the eldest daughter of Abel Merryweather, the grandfather asks her daughter to sit beside the dead grandfather. She orders her to change her dress to a black mourning dress before Elizabeth Jordan, Amelia's sister's arrival. She wants everything to be arranged previous handed so that when Elizabeth and her husband would arrive they would find everything arranged.