I can remember, as
if it were just now, the day when I began to work on my casket. I am sitting in my mother’s chamber, with the
sunshine pouring in through the windows, with my sisters around me, and I am
wishing that they would not meddle so much.
They have all made their caskets long since (very long since, in Mary’s
case, for she is ten years older than me, and married now too, but that does
not stop her telling me what I should be doing, whenever she comes to visit), but
they think I am of no account and must listen to whatever they say. But Mother looks at me as they speak, and
gives me her special smile, and I know she understands.
“You should embroider
the story of Isaac and Hagar,” says Mary, who is of a thoughtful and religious
turn of mind.
“No, that is what
you did,” says Harriet, who is very full of herself now Master Bond has offered
for her hand. “I think she should
embroider the Virtues.”
“Mother’s book of
designs has pictures of the story of Joseph and his brethren,” says Dilly. “He had even more brothers than we have
sisters.”
I think of all our
little brothers, five of them, buried under the floor of the church in their
tiny coffins, and two of our sisters as well.
Our mother and father have had thirteen children, and only we five girls
and precious Tom survive. But I do not
want to embroider Joseph, who although nearly the youngest was much
disliked by his brothers for his arrogance and for being so spoilt by his
father. And Harriet has often said that
I am also spoilt, because I am the youngest girl.
“It is my casket,”
I tell them. “And I will have on it
exactly what I want, not what any of you want.”
“Hoity toity,”
says Dilly, who can sting like a wasp when she wants, though she is the
prettiest of all of us. “If you wish
your casket to be admired, you should listen to us. We are your elders, after all.”
“Let her do as she
pleases,” says Pen, who is next in age to me, being fourteen to my eleven. “She is right, it is her casket. Would you have wanted to be ordered about
like that?”
I smile at her
gratefully. Pen and I are very close,
thick as thieves so Dilly says, and sometimes it feels as if we two stand fast
against the world. Or against our
sisters. Pen put the story of Achilles
on her casket, and was roundly abused by Harriet and Dilly for her pains, they
telling her that Achilles was a heathen and heathens had no business on a
casket.
“I have decided,”
I announce, for that will be the best way to silence them, even if it is not
true. “I will embroider figures who are
the Five Senses. There are sure to be
designs for them in Mother’s pattern book.”
Then Mother
beckons me over to her table, where the book is laid out for me, and finds the
pages that I want. There is Hearing,
with a lady playing a lute and singing, and a gentleman, perhaps her husband or
her betrothed, listening to her. For
Taste, another lady is accompanied by a monkey, I have no idea why. The same lady, or one very like, has a dog
beside her, and my mother tells me that she represents Smell – which I can
understand, for Mother’s old dog Rufus stinks especially when he is wet. But I have a different idea, I imagine the
lady sniffing a gorgeous rose, and I can see already, in my mind, the way I
will work it, and perhaps sprinkle some rosewater onto the threads so that
there really will be the scent of it on the flower. Sight is represented by a lady with an eagle,
for eagles’ eyes are famously keen, so Mother says, and perhaps I will
embroider an eagle, for if I can work it right it will be splendid on the front
of the casket. And for Touch, the lady holds
a strange creature like a ball, with legs and head sticking out, which Mother
tells me is something called a Tortoise, and has a hard shell like a snail’s,
but a soft body inside. So I can see that
it too is fitting.
But then I begin
to turn the pages, looking for other animals to decorate my design, and there
are so many I exclaim in delight. There
are dogs large and small, hounds and soft spaniels, a stripy cat just like Grimalkin
who haunts the stables, a strange beast with a long neck and one with a humped
back and another with a long nose, that I know is an elephant. I linger over a peacock, with his glorious
tail, and a squirrel with hers, and I long to put them all on my casket, even
though it would then have to be the size of the church chest, which a grown man
can lie in, for all of them to fit on, and the working of it would take me a
hundred years. And there are trees and
flowers too, and strange looking castles or houses with towers, and I know
suddenly that I will put our own house, that I love so well, on the lid of my
casket, as a token of my family, who have lived here for hundreds of years.
“Have you decided,
child?” asks my mother, smiling, and I shake my head in bewilderment, for I
never knew there was so much choice before me, and I find myself unable to
choose. “Perhaps this will help you,”
she adds, and draws her workbox towards us on the table, and opens the lid.
Within are all her
sewing silks, neatly wound and set in order of colour. There are deep greens and blues that I feel I
could drown in, and yellows and golds made for embroidering sunlight, and rich
reds and purples that would clothe a king.
Best of all are the precious metal threads, glittering in the
light. I stare in wonder, while a
thousand possibilities race through my mind.
I envisage flowers in all their brilliant profusion, and that soft rose
would be the perfect colour for the mellow brickwork of the house, and the
three glowing shades of orange-tawny brings the fur of a squirrel to mind, with
its bushy tail and tufted ears. The lady
will have gold in her hair and silver in her gown, and the jewel hues of
bluebells, amethyst and turquoise, to walk amongst. These are the
colours of heaven, and I have them at my command, and although many have
praised my needlework and I know I must have some competence, or Mother would not feel I was ready for this, for a moment I tremble
before the task before me, and hope that my skill will be the equal of my
vision.
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