Flavour of the Day (19/12)
Title: In Memoriam
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): Flavour of the Day (19/12/15) - valediction (an act of bidding farewell or taking leave.)
Toppings/Extras: Whipped Cream
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1326
Notes: 1923; John Iveson, Elizabeth Iveson, Edward Iveson. (Warnings for mentions of impending death.)
Summary: How does someone say goodbye?
***
“You have to see him,” Elizabeth had said. “He knows. He’s too old not to be told and, in any case, with Jane here, he’d have found out. She’s never been careful about what she says - and you know how Edward is for turning up in unexpected corners.” And when John had protested (he didn’t want Edward to see him like this, didn’t want this to be the way he remembered him) she’d said that that was selfishness, nothing but pride getting in the way.
He managed a smile, despite his current state of irritability. “Sympathetic to the last,” he’d said. He’d been thinking ever since what to say: there ought to be something he should say, but anything in that line seemed foolish and pompous. Do what you would, you could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get bitten by the wrong mosquito, and there you were. He’d recovered, but apparently the malaria had caused complications with his liver, and so here he was, dying painfully after all, and leaving far sooner than he’d ever intended. He’d had to stifle the now familiar feeling of rage, born of intense frustration at his helplessness against the situation. Any attempts at fatherly wisdom seemed even more fatuous than usual now.
The only thing to do was to be as normal as he could be in the circumstances, and that was what he tried for when Edward came in, pale but composed and looking with alarm at John in the bed. “Ned,” he said. “And what have you been up to?”
Edward sat down on the chair by the bed. “Not very much. Aunt Jane keeps making me go outside.”
“Ah,” said John, “and it’s not so much fun, is it, without your partner in crime?” In the normal way of things, Edward would have been spending most of the holidays with his cousins, Nancy in particular, but they were away. His half-sister Jane had come down from Scotland at the news and, while she was helping, she wasn’t the sort of person to have much understanding of why anyone might want to sit about reading books when they could be doing something far healthier outside.
Edward nodded and then turned away suddenly, rubbing a hand across his eyes angrily.
“Now, now,” said John, reaching out a hand and, as Edward edged forward, he closed his fingers around Edward’s wrist. “No call for it yet. I’m still here - but, if you must, it’s a good deal better than you being glad to be rid of me, so don’t mind me. Come on, sit here. I’ve been thinking - we really ought to get young Ned the cabin boy out of that fix, eh?”
Edward, immediately looking a little happier, moved over to sit on the edge of the bed beside John.
“Now, where were we?” John asked. “Trapped in the cave still, I think?”
Edward nodded, and John continued: “So, there young Ned was, having the key at last, but now the tide was coming in fast, with no way out. But that’s not quite true, is it? Because of course, there was the only passage, far too narrow and steep for most people to climb - but not a problem for a slight young lad who’s been climbing up and down the rigging every day of his life.” He took story-Ned up through the narrow tunnel, avoiding a rock fall, and safely out at the other end. “And we already know where it leads, don’t we?”
“Straight into the library in the squire’s house,” said Edward.
“Indeed. And, pulling the string from round his neck, Ned put that key to the treasure chest right into the squire’s hands - where it belonged.” And with that, John shifted a little, pressing a key into Edward’s own hand and closing his fingers around it. “This here,” he said, as Edward gave him a startled look, as if he’d managed some magic trick, “it isn’t so exciting - certainly no treasure - but it’s the key to the red trunk in the attic. Some of your grandmother’s old things are inside it - a few of your aunt’s, too. And there really isn’t anybody in the world it can belong to but you, so you’d better take care of it now.”
There was no treasure in the trunk, perhaps, but what there was could be easily transformed by the imagination, especially when up in the attic with a candle. Edward hadn’t been able to keep away, going up there at first opportunity even though he couldn’t seem to find his torch. (Had he lent it to Nancy? he wondered, and thought he might have done).
Edward pulled out the curtain on the top that was covering the rest of the contents, and surveyed it with an impressed look, not taking any note of its faded patches or holes. It was green velvet and would make a splendid royal cloak, or at least, it would if Nancy was here to join him in such games. As for treasure, he pulled out an old brooch of jet and silver, and a small string of seed pearls. Next to them, he found some sepia photographs, old-fashioned cartes de visite with their posed Victorian subjects looking back out at him. He’d seen photographs of these people before, enough to recognise his late aunt in the young woman with a smile like Father’s and thick curly hair (again, like Father’s, and like his own when it wasn’t cut and combed to within an inch of its life, which people would do); and that the solemn family group was Grandfather Iveson with Grandmother Iveson, his aunt again, this time much younger, and the slightly blurry-faced toddler in a dress at his grandmother’s knee had to be Father. With the photographs were two small books with no dust jackets but with Grandmother’s name on the spine: Elinor R. Stephenson. When he opened them, though, the prose was too dense and dry to read much of, and the only pictures were several careful prints of pondweed. But it could be code, he decided, again with an eye to next time Nancy was here.
At the bottom, there were several old dresses, packed carefully in paper and moth balls that made him wrinkle his nose, but clearly they were treasure, too: fine silks, part of a stolen cargo, no doubt. He poked at the edges, not pulling them out: one in cream and yellowed lace that had perhaps once been white, another a satiny grey, and the third forget-me-not blue, an embroidered collar poking out of the paper where he’d tugged it loose.
Edward paused, kneeling on the nailed in floorboards by the trunk, thinking; until he pulled away suddenly, and climbed back down the ladder, only narrowly missing Aunt Jane in crossing the landing. He shut the door behind him as he reached his room, and then dived under the bed, drawing out his own small case of treasures, hunting through it for what he wanted: some fossils from Kilve (they’d had a holiday in the West Country, where Grandmother’s parents had come from), and a postcard photograph of his father, letters he’d sent him from abroad and the two very old toy soldiers (that Father said had been the only survivors of the battles of his youth), shoved all of it under his jumper and made a dash for the attic again.
Safely up there once more, he placed those things in the trunk with the rest and then sat down beside it, first blowing out the candle, then pulling the green curtain round him, and leaning back against the trunk, almost as if on guard.
Mother found him still there much later and, when she wanted to know what he was doing, he didn’t have any explanation for her, as he sheepishly tried to disentangle himself from the curtain; it had just felt like the right thing to do.
***
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): Flavour of the Day (19/12/15) - valediction (an act of bidding farewell or taking leave.)
Toppings/Extras: Whipped Cream
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1326
Notes: 1923; John Iveson, Elizabeth Iveson, Edward Iveson. (Warnings for mentions of impending death.)
Summary: How does someone say goodbye?
***
“You have to see him,” Elizabeth had said. “He knows. He’s too old not to be told and, in any case, with Jane here, he’d have found out. She’s never been careful about what she says - and you know how Edward is for turning up in unexpected corners.” And when John had protested (he didn’t want Edward to see him like this, didn’t want this to be the way he remembered him) she’d said that that was selfishness, nothing but pride getting in the way.
He managed a smile, despite his current state of irritability. “Sympathetic to the last,” he’d said. He’d been thinking ever since what to say: there ought to be something he should say, but anything in that line seemed foolish and pompous. Do what you would, you could be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get bitten by the wrong mosquito, and there you were. He’d recovered, but apparently the malaria had caused complications with his liver, and so here he was, dying painfully after all, and leaving far sooner than he’d ever intended. He’d had to stifle the now familiar feeling of rage, born of intense frustration at his helplessness against the situation. Any attempts at fatherly wisdom seemed even more fatuous than usual now.
The only thing to do was to be as normal as he could be in the circumstances, and that was what he tried for when Edward came in, pale but composed and looking with alarm at John in the bed. “Ned,” he said. “And what have you been up to?”
Edward sat down on the chair by the bed. “Not very much. Aunt Jane keeps making me go outside.”
“Ah,” said John, “and it’s not so much fun, is it, without your partner in crime?” In the normal way of things, Edward would have been spending most of the holidays with his cousins, Nancy in particular, but they were away. His half-sister Jane had come down from Scotland at the news and, while she was helping, she wasn’t the sort of person to have much understanding of why anyone might want to sit about reading books when they could be doing something far healthier outside.
Edward nodded and then turned away suddenly, rubbing a hand across his eyes angrily.
“Now, now,” said John, reaching out a hand and, as Edward edged forward, he closed his fingers around Edward’s wrist. “No call for it yet. I’m still here - but, if you must, it’s a good deal better than you being glad to be rid of me, so don’t mind me. Come on, sit here. I’ve been thinking - we really ought to get young Ned the cabin boy out of that fix, eh?”
Edward, immediately looking a little happier, moved over to sit on the edge of the bed beside John.
“Now, where were we?” John asked. “Trapped in the cave still, I think?”
Edward nodded, and John continued: “So, there young Ned was, having the key at last, but now the tide was coming in fast, with no way out. But that’s not quite true, is it? Because of course, there was the only passage, far too narrow and steep for most people to climb - but not a problem for a slight young lad who’s been climbing up and down the rigging every day of his life.” He took story-Ned up through the narrow tunnel, avoiding a rock fall, and safely out at the other end. “And we already know where it leads, don’t we?”
“Straight into the library in the squire’s house,” said Edward.
“Indeed. And, pulling the string from round his neck, Ned put that key to the treasure chest right into the squire’s hands - where it belonged.” And with that, John shifted a little, pressing a key into Edward’s own hand and closing his fingers around it. “This here,” he said, as Edward gave him a startled look, as if he’d managed some magic trick, “it isn’t so exciting - certainly no treasure - but it’s the key to the red trunk in the attic. Some of your grandmother’s old things are inside it - a few of your aunt’s, too. And there really isn’t anybody in the world it can belong to but you, so you’d better take care of it now.”
There was no treasure in the trunk, perhaps, but what there was could be easily transformed by the imagination, especially when up in the attic with a candle. Edward hadn’t been able to keep away, going up there at first opportunity even though he couldn’t seem to find his torch. (Had he lent it to Nancy? he wondered, and thought he might have done).
Edward pulled out the curtain on the top that was covering the rest of the contents, and surveyed it with an impressed look, not taking any note of its faded patches or holes. It was green velvet and would make a splendid royal cloak, or at least, it would if Nancy was here to join him in such games. As for treasure, he pulled out an old brooch of jet and silver, and a small string of seed pearls. Next to them, he found some sepia photographs, old-fashioned cartes de visite with their posed Victorian subjects looking back out at him. He’d seen photographs of these people before, enough to recognise his late aunt in the young woman with a smile like Father’s and thick curly hair (again, like Father’s, and like his own when it wasn’t cut and combed to within an inch of its life, which people would do); and that the solemn family group was Grandfather Iveson with Grandmother Iveson, his aunt again, this time much younger, and the slightly blurry-faced toddler in a dress at his grandmother’s knee had to be Father. With the photographs were two small books with no dust jackets but with Grandmother’s name on the spine: Elinor R. Stephenson. When he opened them, though, the prose was too dense and dry to read much of, and the only pictures were several careful prints of pondweed. But it could be code, he decided, again with an eye to next time Nancy was here.
At the bottom, there were several old dresses, packed carefully in paper and moth balls that made him wrinkle his nose, but clearly they were treasure, too: fine silks, part of a stolen cargo, no doubt. He poked at the edges, not pulling them out: one in cream and yellowed lace that had perhaps once been white, another a satiny grey, and the third forget-me-not blue, an embroidered collar poking out of the paper where he’d tugged it loose.
Edward paused, kneeling on the nailed in floorboards by the trunk, thinking; until he pulled away suddenly, and climbed back down the ladder, only narrowly missing Aunt Jane in crossing the landing. He shut the door behind him as he reached his room, and then dived under the bed, drawing out his own small case of treasures, hunting through it for what he wanted: some fossils from Kilve (they’d had a holiday in the West Country, where Grandmother’s parents had come from), and a postcard photograph of his father, letters he’d sent him from abroad and the two very old toy soldiers (that Father said had been the only survivors of the battles of his youth), shoved all of it under his jumper and made a dash for the attic again.
Safely up there once more, he placed those things in the trunk with the rest and then sat down beside it, first blowing out the candle, then pulling the green curtain round him, and leaning back against the trunk, almost as if on guard.
Mother found him still there much later and, when she wanted to know what he was doing, he didn’t have any explanation for her, as he sheepishly tried to disentangle himself from the curtain; it had just felt like the right thing to do.
***