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The day was still new. You could see dew on the grass
and flowers. Earth was coming to life. A slight breeze moved the trees
like fans cooling Mother Nature's face. The sun was low yet. It would be
hot soon and hotter still as the hours dragged on towards nightfall. None
of it mattered to Giles Cavender, second son of Coleman and Katherine
Cavender. Days and nights had become one. This morning everyone else had
left him here devastated and alone after the vicar had pronounced his wife
to the ages. “Ages,” he repeated in his head. “She was barely twenty,” he
sobbed as the dirt in both fists became one with his face when he brought
his hands to his cheeks. He threw himself prone on the freshly filled
earthen tomb his lovely Kesiah now shared with so many worms and
ancestors. Captured for eternity, to become one again with from whence we
all come. Ashes to ashes.
She hadn't been until four days ago. She had been so alive, vital,
unspeakably beautiful, made more so as she carried their firstborn to
fruition. It had all gone horribly wrong. “Too fragile, too small to
deliver.” That's what the good midwife and doctor had said as his precious
Kesiah laid bleeding and dying in bed; their bed. A bed he no longer could
sleep in or look at. He had taken an axe to it as if avenging the fixture
as the cause of his pain when it had been a source of so much love and
pleasure until that moment when she breathed her last. They both died that
day. He could feel nothing now, save pain in every ounce of his being.
He lifted himself up and stared towards the clouds. Wanted to ask
why….didn't. He already had a thousand times. Knew there were no answers
for him. His family and friends had tried to answer him. Same old
platitudes and clichés they used for any young person who died. Only this
time they were able to throw in the parts about how women died in
childbirth all the time. There'd be someone else; someone sturdy who could
bare innumerous children to carry on his name. He didn't want a sturdy
woman, he wanted Kesiah. He had Adrian now to carry on his name. One never
had to have a menagerie of children to be remembered. He had his son; he
had to care for him. Another wife was the furthest thought from his mind.
Finally able to come to grips that there was no more he could do here but
to visit as often as practicable, he gathered himself to a stand and
looked around. He knew this was the right place for her to rest. They had
rested here often, hidden from the outside world. They first came here as
children. Long ago...was it? Perhaps not, though it seemed a lifetime.
Secreted from the many roads and between the two family's lands you could
look down on Eastbourne several miles away. You could see the rise of the
cliffs, the lighthouse and what lay beyond. You could smell the salty
ocean air as it was carried up the cliff and over the hill then beyond
this point. On a calm day, the waves crashing on the rocks below the
lighthouse could be noticed if one wanted; transported over the distance,
heard after those waves had retreated back to calmness and headed back out
to sea. You could imagine where the waters had been and what they were
bringing in to shore.
Without thinking, Giles had begun the walk towards the white sandy cliffs.
Before he became conscious of where he had wandered, he found himself
standing at the most prominent point, staring out. He was straining to see
what was there. Nothing; like his life now, save his son. He turned and
glanced at the lighthouse. Hearing a low giggle he immediately new it was
Adeline, the keeper’s daughter. How old was she now? He really didn't care
so banished the question from his head. It wasn't worth his effort to try
and remember the age of the help. He did recall that she had, in fact,
attended the burial of his precious Kizzie. He noticed because she had
been the only person employed outside the household to do so. It wasn't
necessary, or required. A nice gesture, though somehow he knew she would
be there. Another giggle as he made his way back towards Belle Toute and
the path that would take him to Palisade. Stepping quietly along the trail
he knew it would be easier to walk through the village. It had become too
hot already to trudge back up the hill he'd descended from his beloved's
grave. The silence and anguish he found himself in was momentarily broken
as the lighthouse cottage door swung open with an obnoxious creek, then
slammed back on its' hinges. An annoying crash that got his attention. He
heard the giggling again and recognized the barefooted intruder to his
solemnity and thoughts. She seemed to have not noticed his presence on the
precipice, nor his being so close to her at all. She sprinted out the
door; her dress was hiked up with one hand, a bucket in the other. Without
breaking stride she ran, then disappeared, down the path towards the ocean
below.
Yes Adeline; different that one. He did not want to be thinking about her.
Turning back towards town he hastened his step. It was close to time that
his son would need to see his father and he...him. |