Bring Back to the Dells

A shift in breeze and dip in temperature drew me from memories to the winding road that passed in front of the tiny cottage.

Hoof beats signaled the approach of a rider. Young and vibrant in red coat and dark jerkins. Even from a distance I could make out the russet of road dust clinging to his otherwise immaculate attire. The young man dropped from his mount to the foot of the cobbled path with such a fervor his steed had barely time to settle. This messenger approached our solitary cottage nestled on the vast grounds that cloistered it. Something in his posture caught my curiosity more than the average visitor would.

Shaded and obscured by low hanging willows arching cobbled footpath, I watched, and listened, as the messenger’s boots clicked interruptions in the late summer chorus of bird, breeze, and insect. 

He dabbed the heat of the day from his brow with a linen kerchief as red as his waist coat as he paused before our cherry hued door. Its simplicity added vibrance to the stark white porch and welcomed visitors and warded strangers, yet the comparison to this rider’s attire disturbed my senses. 

The messenger’s white gloved knuckles rapped a rhythmic staccato to his presence that carried across the breath of the gardens.

A moment passed before the faint squeak of hinges drew the youth’s posture to attention. 

Though I could scarce make out their faces from my position on the garden swing, I surmised the smiling greeting the maid, Lily, in crisp yellow apron, offered upon appearance on the porch. Her tawny hair tucked into white bonnet stood in contrast to the pale dress.  

“Good day, sir.” Lily’s smile carried warm words within range of my hearing. “How may I be of assistance?”

With little more than a nod, the messenger, from his pocketed leather satchel, produced an envelope, the ebony of it a patch of night in the bright of the late summer day. “An invitation to the Mistress Magareen Hadowen from the Master of Hadowen Estate at Yarrow Hart.”  

A laconic bow accompanied the maid’s acceptance of the dispatch, and with that exchange the posture of the messenger lightened with a relief of some greater weight. 

Without further utterance the messenger’s footfalls cantored the length of the terrace to the gate.

Deferential and polished, though the envoy was, the maid wavered on the vestibule to oversee his departure. Something inflicted a posture of dis-ease on her cultivated figure. The young maid quivered and clenched her arms in spite of the afternoon sun before retreating to the asylum of the cottage.

Perhaps his demeanor had put her off as it had me. 

I scrutinized this disruption of the day’s serenity until messenger and mount both were little more than an accent against the birdsong and diminishing blemish in the landscape.

I abided, perched at the periphery of the patio in the embrace of the sallow wicker-work sling, my legs pendant beneath the sheath of my frock. Curling wisps of mahogany escaped their pins to dance across my vigilant countenance as the journal pages on my lap lifted against the caress of a sudden zephyr. 

With the weight of a white gloved palm I prevented their turning.

“Mistress.” A hushed, winsome beckoning swayed me from further speculation ensnared by the austere emissary. 

The maid’s subdued approach subsequently seized my attention. My scrutiny veered from the distant silhouette to meet the woman’s affable gaze. With little pretense she presented the dispatch from her hand. 

I accepted the stygian parchment with clement curiosity.  

“Thank you, Lily.” I released the woman with a word and a wave.

With bob and pivot, she departed to the refuge through the passage she had come. 

The gate swung in her wake offering a similar shift near the same as that of the messenger.

I tarried in opening the memo, harkening to the fade of footfalls on tile, until again I discerned I was alone with my thoughts.  

Turning the envelope between my hands I struggled to compose my countenance of the curious frown that had arrived with the appearance of the messenger and lingered yet upon my brow. 

“This is irregular.” The whisper escaped unheeded. 

And indeed it was. In all the years I had lived in the cottage, not a single letter had arrived, addressed to me, unless previously accounted to Ama. As I remained her ward.

External appearance betrayed nothing of the envelope’s contents. With journal closed and aside, I studied a moment the floral motif that guarded the billet before I cracked the paper from it’s waxen seal. 

The leaves I plucked free were folded in crisp precision. They liberated an aroma of roses that shattered a dam so long suppressed with a flood of memories. 

The journal tumbled, forgotten, as I rose from the seat, and read the exacting words that elucidated the nature of the message.

“Kassia?” My voice elevated not beyond casual volume of speech, yet from yonder in the garden, a woman in taupe smock and sullied apron raised from her chore. 

A broad brim hat obscured her features as she moved among the beds of lilies, amaranths, daisies, and camellias.

At her approach, Kassia tugged free her soiled gloves to expose delicate yet duty firmed hands. Tucking the mitts into the ribboned girdle of her apron, she then removed the expansive straw head covering, freeing an auburn braid to tumble over her soft shoulders.  

To Kassia, who had grown from distant cousin to elder sister, I offered envelope and letter. An unbidden tremble escaped through my fingertips as my grip released the sheaves into her possession. I too, it seemed, had fallen under some curious spell of the letter, though from me no weight lifted once passed to another. 

Abject lines creased Kassia’s otherwise youthful appearance as her grey eyes flowed over the words inscribed upon the crisp stationary.

“Request, it says? More akin to a demand.” Kassia hoisted her frown from the letter to my questioning regard.

I conveyed nothing in return, yet uncertain as to the emotions to set free. I tidied my skirts in effort to avert my attention elsewhere and found my eyes floating to the sprawling ivy as it climbed verdantly across the white washed walls of our little country home. Walls that had seen me through torpid years of my youth. 

I breathed the humid perfume of flowers, dirt, and soap, allowing the peace of pleasant memories to fill my nostrils.

“I am taking this to my mother.” Kassia swatted the papers against her thigh.

Was it the strange summons yet again, or the way Kassia said ‘my’ in reference to Ama that sent tremor to the hairs at my neck.

Hat brim clenched in one hand and letter in the other, Kassia stormed through the broad French doors leading to the heart of the cottage. Frustration weighed Kassia’s booted feet as she clicked the force of her displeasure into the bricks of the footpath.