Something in the atmosphere

Sunday 1 March 2009

It is March now. Snow falls from a leaden sky, swirlling round the corners of Terncote Castle like an ominous portend. Out beyond the garden wall a leaden sky hovers over the slow, rolling slate-grey sea. Behind me a small fire of hickory crackles and seethes soothingly, and, illuminated by the firelight and the glow of the computer screen, my room is comfortably warm and dry. I am in a long flannel nightgown and socks now, but this afternoon I was in much less as I lay curled up in bed reading over my writing. A glass of wine, unfinished since dinner, sits with the last of its second ice cube dissipating into the golden sheen. I am content.

Jessy came in earlier, herself much less dressed than I, to report that 'Amazing Race' is on again and asking if I would watch it. I declined, and she dragged a quilt wrapt round her shoulders out to the stairs and descended with little Lisa to watch it in the TV room down below. I believe the whole wing this end to be dark but for my computer and firelight. But we often leave Terncote in darkness here. It is no gothic mansion, but we are frugal and not a little bit romantic. I often carry a candle round with me rather than switch on unnecessary lights. Mother (my stepmother) came in with one not an hour ago, 'checking on' me, as she said, but really to find like-minded company, for she knows I am always a little dramatic and much more traditional than most people my age, and she likes that about me.

Sometimes I really like to think I belong to another century. It's something I got from my own mother, I know. She so loved living a traditional kind of life. All Daddy's experience in the limelight meant little to her. It was not what she loved about him. To her, he was just a man, gentle, kind, intelligent, cultured, affectionate, and a little vulnerable, who needed to be loved for who he was, not what he was. From that marriage came Jessy and me. And we cannot escape the inevitability of what we have become any more than we can avoid being human beings. If Mommy were here right now she would have lit this fire herself, sat back with me in bed to read along with me, worn her flannel nightshirt and socks like I'm wearing mine and declined the invitation to watch a modern 'reality show' on TV for the chance to type some atmospheric philosophies on a personal online journal during a late-evening snowstorm in March.

...