a statuesque fiddlehead fern brilliant freshgreen unfurled from the threshold
of two huge leadglass front doors up the entrys center to its bowed head which nearly
reached the foot of a tenfoot wide staircase
it was handpainted on the hardwood planked floor serpentine and formed somewhat of a family crest elaborated the pinnate leaves running up either side were actually florid lettering the names of family ancestors
the gentlewoman who built the house commissioned it
she was the last of the family
it was her imagethe bowed curled head at its top for which there would be no more of her family
the vibrant exquisite formthis impossible fern reaching deep into the magnificent hallway was an affirmation of what the family had achieved and made possible over hundreds of years
from where he stood at its foot it seemed a living thing
he believed to the old woman it was
the family had perhaps unfortunately produced abundant female offspring
the women were strong capable cerebral
they however attracted less fortunate suitors who were also less capable and terribly more conniving and opportunistic
it wasnt that they were unattractive women
but more attractive women without means pranced at their edges and provided overt temptations who their suitors blamed and accused when they were found wanting
over the years successive matriarchs who did not abort the children of their ill-fated trysts warned their daughters of the iniquitiesthe travesties they suffered their large hearttheir desperate desire to love and be loved preyed on then only to have their cool reasontheir cooled brows to rightfully deny them an overthrow their affections
the few sons they birthed proved as inferior as their fathers and those few who made it to age where they could go forth and prosper did not
the family plot was filled with dead young men and old matrons
this lineage at long last was finally at an end
as a young woman the old woman passionately withstood withering assaults that she should marry and breed Am I a mare? she snarled pungently
Regardless, madam, was their reply You require a male heir.
defiantly she asked A male error?
No, no, she laughed a cruel laugha sardonic laugh I desire; I deserve love.
that love despite its broadcast and sounding known that love which all those who declared and avowed it
were found wanting
then past childbirthing
the madam took her familys fortune and built a magnificent house with wry humour she called it simply the manse
people fomented
they talked about how the old womans wealth would exceed her and sherather than benefit the community – which her family always had -- she was going to spoil herself indulge her whims
they said she would hide her money in its thick walls hang it in sacks like black bats in its the tall attic or susurratemurmuring buried in its deep dark cellars
the untold reality was at constructions end her vast remaining fortune was converted and placed in an obscure trust to be maintained into the future by vetted female executors whose sole occupation like nuns were to extended its wealth maintain the house and grounds and whenever possible add to the remarkable collections contained within
the manse becoming museum
the last woman standing should finances be failed by societal mismanagement ruin inevitable she was to quit to the houses deepest cellar and light a thin candle held within a simple wired and glass chimney lantern that sat fixed atop a stone cistern longago emptied of its artesian water the estates cold heart
she was to light the lantern and leave
the executors without fault found the command and the item odd
it remained ever simple inauspicious untouched in decades
Time is amnesia
it had been so longso far removed that no one in several generations had the imagination the last matron did they thought -- gossip accrued and hardened into fact -- the lantern wasnt a peculiar request a faint line-item of a woman perhaps senile and particular mind
rather the candle in the crude lantern was romanticised across from it the old woman had a woodcarved bust of herself placed as she also had herself top off the entryways illustrious fern the unlit candle was meant symbolically as her final light a final beeswax sunset to anoint the last matron who oversaw the houses erection
never did a question or comprehension rise to the mindboggling featthe realisation that the slender candle was a wick to a hidden cache a massive fire bomb beneath and worked into its walls that would immolate and raze the entire estate
0714, Twosday,
9 6. 20
1121, Sunday, 13 6.
20
