Crossing

Bereavement

“It seems, perhaps a strange and unnecessary thing to go prowling back into the recesses of the past and to lift the decent curtain which has covered the weary, ugly follies” ~ Lord Howard de Walden

1

Bereavement


Acadia mourned. She wore black and her hair was pinned back under a small black hat. Her uncle was dead. The conventions failed to express her sorrow, as it was not just an uncle who she had lost but a future too. Uncle Rhoe had been kind, had let her study but left Estovers and her in the care of his friend “Uncle” Fidayeen now. Fidayeen believed that girls were born for the hearth and the kitchen and meant to quell any ideas which Acadia might have learnt otherwise. Estovers, her brother didn’t understand what she missed so much about studying but he had never enjoyed it much anyway. Standing a few feet away he stared unbelieving as the funeral pyre was lit and their best friend’s earthly remains began to burn to ash. Ash that would be left to be taken by the wind until there was nothing left for them to mourn over. Acadia dreaded that day, it would herald the start of a beginning of something which she didn’t want.
Together Acadia and her brother made their way back to the house which was theirs no longer. Uncle Rhoe had left nothing for them, only the promise of care by Fidayeen and books for Acadia. As they approached the house, their cook ran out tearfully to console them.
‘You poor things, come inside, it’ll be the last time you’re able to before you go off to Fidayeen’s house where two sheets are luxury and things like coffee and sugar are scarce.’
‘Everything will be alright, just don’t worry. We’ve already lost a mother and father, so the pain is dull compared to that.’
‘Don’t be so melancholy Estovers. There will be something for us whatever happens. There always has been.’
‘But if a man cannot afford to look after his own funeral clothes, like Fidayeen in his dusty and patched ones, how will he be able to care for us? I don’t want to see you reduced to a seamstress. I just won’t let it happen.’
Their cook shook her head and led them into the drawing room where dust covers already shrouded the furniture. Dumping several on the floor Quelea, the cook, sat them down and left with the promise of returning with something hot.
‘You shouldn’t speak in that way; it shows disrespect for Fidayeen who from now on will be our representative in the adult world until you become of age.’
‘I can’t help it.’ Estovers burst out before being able to bite it back, ‘when we began our life with Uncle Rhoe it felt right, like a continuing of our old life but this... This feels like a blunt knife has been dragged through the weave of our lives. It’s all wrong.’
‘Wrong or not we have to live with it.’
Quelea came back in with two steaming mugs of coffee which were welcomed greatly as something to stop unwanted thoughts trespassing on the unwilling mind.
‘Your cases are being packed so you needn’t fret about that. Acadia, will you come with me to the library so we can know which books you are taking? I know your uncle only left you a few but no one will notice if you take a couple extra.’ Acadia followed Quelea up the stairs to the small dusty room which she considered to hold great knowledge. ‘I’ll leave you here to decide,’ and the kindly cook closed the door behind her.
Trailing her fingers along the old spines, Acadia let out a small sob. To think that this whole library, which had been in her reach whenever she wanted it, was to be so cruelly snatched away; leaving her only able to steal a few extra volumes away, like a common criminal. Her heart ached, she wanted to be able to finger each rough page and soak up each writer’s knowledge. However, she could not. Books were not worth her sorrow, they didn’t live or breathe. She hadn’t cried since Rhoe died but this one dilemma widened the rivulet until the tears flowed and she couldn’t stop them. Wretchedly, she moved about the books, hating but at the same time loving these objects which had brought on the tears which had ceased to well at her uncle’s death. Grabbing a book from a shelf the pearls of misery spilt onto the open page. The paper puckered but Acadia saw that the page was from a volume of poetry and was entitled ‘The Definition of Love’. She sneered at the coincidence that a poem was trying to define something for her that she had lost, forever. 

My Love is of a birth as rare
As ‘tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by despair
Upon Impossibility

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing
Where feeble Hope could ne’r have flown
But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing

‘Vainly indeed.’ Acadia felt less dislike for the poem as it conveyed her feeling of hopelessness of never being able to have her beloved uncle back even though it was describing a different type of love, one of unreciprocated passion. Sighing, she placed the book on the table and began to remove others from the shelves.
         The pile had grown to at least twenty books when Estovers burst in looking worried. ‘Accie, we can’t take all these books with us but hurry as we have to leave soon. The council has come and said that if we don’t leave the house within a day they will no longer let us stay in Kagu as the house is being repossessed tomorrow.’
         ‘But surely they can’t do that!’
         ‘No ones going to stop them. I mean, who cares about a couple of orphans being chucked out onto the street? We need to get out soon so we can still keep our possessions and they don’t take advantage of our degrading position.’
         ‘You’re right but I just hate to think of this house and all of Rhoe’s possessions being handed over to slimy government officials who probably don’t have a right to it anyway. Help me get these books to my room.’
         Estovers grabbed a couple and left as quickly as he came while Acadia lingered a while longer with a tear tracing a pattern down her cheek. Closing the door she grabbed a book from the table she seemed to have forgotten and whispered her final goodbye.