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rainbowfic2021-03-20 09:41 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2021-03-20 09:41 pm
Colour of the Day (20/03/2021) [Divide & Rule]
Name: Spring Eternal
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Colour of the Day 20/03/2021 (vernal)
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (for March Challenge) + Canvas
Word Count: 803
Rating: G
Warnings: References to religious services & festivals + references to death.
Notes: 1850s/60s; Eleanor Randall Stephenson. (Eleanor is Edward’s paternal grandmother.)
Summary: Eleanor records the flowers of spring.
***
Eleanor sits at the table and studies the bright daffodil in the vase at the centre. She carefully reproduces its defiant bloom in watercolour over an earlier pencil sketch. There’s a minute crack in the blue vase; one long green leaf is broken. She’s careful to keep to the truth, record what is, the way that Father taught her. And if the line of the vase isn’t quite right yet, and the perspective needs work, it’s still a splash of lightness in contrast the warm brown and green of the dining room.
Mrs Crowcombe, though wary of such fripperies as painting, is drawn by it, unbending enough to approve aloud: “Pretty work, Miss Ellen. You’ve got it to the life.”
She hasn’t, though; she’ll try again tomorrow.
*
The year turns not only by ruthless numbers on the calendar on the wall, but by agricultural seasons and the rites of the church and village. Spring comes and with it Easter. Eleanor and Lewis sit in sober best through the solemnity of Friday’s service and dinner of fish, before Sunday brings a church full of flowers and everyone in their newest clothes and Father’s brightest sermon of the year. No detours of history and etymology for Easter Day (though Eleanor likes them in a funny way even if she doesn’t understand; she thinks of all his books in the library and how one day she will unlock all their secrets like Father). The sun shines through stained glass, bright as if it never rose before and the bells ring out in joy.
Monday is the best day, though. They roll brightly coloured eggs down the grassy slope beyond the village green, and the children often roll down after, laughing as they tumble over grass and daisies and buttercups. Thistles, too, if they’re unlucky.
Lewis lies at the bottom, muddy and grass-stained, while Eleanor waits at the top. She’s grown enough not to want to part with new-found dignity and, besides, Mrs Crowcombe says young ladies should have proper decorum and not display their undergarments to the whole village.
She picks daisies and makes a chain that will not last long enough to draw, but she’ll press them later and keep them that way. In the hedge, she spies a delicate primrose tucked almost out of sight. And Lewis, triumphant and dishevelled, brings her an egg.
*
Before spring is over and the lambing season is done, they beat the bounds around the parish, to mark and remember the edges of their world. Father likes the old ways; he’ll tell her the long history of how it was used when they didn’t have maps, so they would know how to settle disputes over pieces of land. It’s the boys they take with them, though, not the girls.
Eleanor follows the procession, but when they reach the bluebell wood, she stays and lets them go on without her. She wants to draw before it’s too late, for the bluebells are nearly over, some already fading to lilac. They won’t last much longer.
*
Bluebells aren’t the only things that fade too soon. Eleanor turns in the churchyard, sunlight catching lighter strands of her honey-dark hair under her hat. She sees Father at the door and his hair that once still held strands of the same colour is only silver and snow now. She can see a new truth all too plainly. He moves more slowly than he used to, and as he walks towards her, it’s as if he’s somehow grown fragile and translucent at the edges. An unfamiliar pain, like homesickness, twists her heart and she shivers in sudden cold, as if winter hasn’t gone yet.
Mrs Crowcombe tells them sometimes that Father married late – too late, she says with an edge of disapproval. It meant nothing till now – only a story, the same as the names on the gravestone close by, of the three brothers and sisters who were before her and Lewis. They’re angels in heaven, Mrs Crowcombe says – and adds a stern moral – much better than the wicked pair left to this earth, for her sins. But her voice gives the lie to the chastisement, so they take no notice. And Mother has only ever been a long-ago hazy memory with no sadness in it.
Eleanor stands by the grave, crocus shoots pressing their way through the ground at her feet. The only way to keep things is to put them on paper and press them firmly closed between the pages of a book. She’ll come back later and draw the purple and orange crocus flowers when they’re out, and remember.
Spring will come again; these flowers will come again – but they won’t be the same. She’ll take pencil and charcoal and paint the truth of them, and that will stay forever.
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Colour of the Day 20/03/2021 (vernal)
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (for March Challenge) + Canvas
Word Count: 803
Rating: G
Warnings: References to religious services & festivals + references to death.
Notes: 1850s/60s; Eleanor Randall Stephenson. (Eleanor is Edward’s paternal grandmother.)
Summary: Eleanor records the flowers of spring.
***
Eleanor sits at the table and studies the bright daffodil in the vase at the centre. She carefully reproduces its defiant bloom in watercolour over an earlier pencil sketch. There’s a minute crack in the blue vase; one long green leaf is broken. She’s careful to keep to the truth, record what is, the way that Father taught her. And if the line of the vase isn’t quite right yet, and the perspective needs work, it’s still a splash of lightness in contrast the warm brown and green of the dining room.
Mrs Crowcombe, though wary of such fripperies as painting, is drawn by it, unbending enough to approve aloud: “Pretty work, Miss Ellen. You’ve got it to the life.”
She hasn’t, though; she’ll try again tomorrow.
*
The year turns not only by ruthless numbers on the calendar on the wall, but by agricultural seasons and the rites of the church and village. Spring comes and with it Easter. Eleanor and Lewis sit in sober best through the solemnity of Friday’s service and dinner of fish, before Sunday brings a church full of flowers and everyone in their newest clothes and Father’s brightest sermon of the year. No detours of history and etymology for Easter Day (though Eleanor likes them in a funny way even if she doesn’t understand; she thinks of all his books in the library and how one day she will unlock all their secrets like Father). The sun shines through stained glass, bright as if it never rose before and the bells ring out in joy.
Monday is the best day, though. They roll brightly coloured eggs down the grassy slope beyond the village green, and the children often roll down after, laughing as they tumble over grass and daisies and buttercups. Thistles, too, if they’re unlucky.
Lewis lies at the bottom, muddy and grass-stained, while Eleanor waits at the top. She’s grown enough not to want to part with new-found dignity and, besides, Mrs Crowcombe says young ladies should have proper decorum and not display their undergarments to the whole village.
She picks daisies and makes a chain that will not last long enough to draw, but she’ll press them later and keep them that way. In the hedge, she spies a delicate primrose tucked almost out of sight. And Lewis, triumphant and dishevelled, brings her an egg.
*
Before spring is over and the lambing season is done, they beat the bounds around the parish, to mark and remember the edges of their world. Father likes the old ways; he’ll tell her the long history of how it was used when they didn’t have maps, so they would know how to settle disputes over pieces of land. It’s the boys they take with them, though, not the girls.
Eleanor follows the procession, but when they reach the bluebell wood, she stays and lets them go on without her. She wants to draw before it’s too late, for the bluebells are nearly over, some already fading to lilac. They won’t last much longer.
*
Bluebells aren’t the only things that fade too soon. Eleanor turns in the churchyard, sunlight catching lighter strands of her honey-dark hair under her hat. She sees Father at the door and his hair that once still held strands of the same colour is only silver and snow now. She can see a new truth all too plainly. He moves more slowly than he used to, and as he walks towards her, it’s as if he’s somehow grown fragile and translucent at the edges. An unfamiliar pain, like homesickness, twists her heart and she shivers in sudden cold, as if winter hasn’t gone yet.
Mrs Crowcombe tells them sometimes that Father married late – too late, she says with an edge of disapproval. It meant nothing till now – only a story, the same as the names on the gravestone close by, of the three brothers and sisters who were before her and Lewis. They’re angels in heaven, Mrs Crowcombe says – and adds a stern moral – much better than the wicked pair left to this earth, for her sins. But her voice gives the lie to the chastisement, so they take no notice. And Mother has only ever been a long-ago hazy memory with no sadness in it.
Eleanor stands by the grave, crocus shoots pressing their way through the ground at her feet. The only way to keep things is to put them on paper and press them firmly closed between the pages of a book. She’ll come back later and draw the purple and orange crocus flowers when they’re out, and remember.
Spring will come again; these flowers will come again – but they won’t be the same. She’ll take pencil and charcoal and paint the truth of them, and that will stay forever.
***
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1. "Thousands of ghosts in the daylight/Walking though my hometown square/Thousands of faces you touched once/Thousands you lost in the fright." - I Died So I Could Haunt You, Stars
2. I know sometimes you feel like you don't fit in/And this world doesn't know what you have within/When I look at you, I see something rare - What Makes You Different, Backstreet Boys