Meeting Emily Jane

Here is a short piece from my new book, I’m still playng with it trying to get it right

Meeting Emily Jane

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 He made his way northwards until he reached Yorkshire and he took up residence in a desolate, abandoned house on the top of the moors. Although wood was scarce he kept a fire burning in the grate as much as possible, burning bits of furniture and even some floorboards from some of the bedrooms, anything to provide some warmth and to hold back the sense of coldness that pervaded his body  In the evening he would sit, wrapped in a blanket on a highbacked settle in front of the fire gazing into the flames and letting his mind travel across the moors outside. During the day he took  solitary  walks and would feel   that the landscape,  if not actually accepting  him, did not reject him  and that he could feel at one with the Spirits of the Land, if there were indeed any spirits inhabiting this bleakness..

On  one walk he noticed in the distance a young woman moving on  a pathway that would soon cross  his.

When their paths did meet, although he and she were enjoying their solitude they walked  together  in silence for a while .

They would sometimes meet on subsequent walks and when they did she would walk with him,   they did not speak but felt a  togetherness for a while. even in the silence.

He found a comfort in the presence of that strange woman, but also  a feeling of dread as he were standing at  the edge of a deep pit and that if he were not careful he would  fall into and be swallowed up.

She found a companionship with him that was missing in her life, an affection  that she could not find with her family at home.. She felt like she wanted to  hold onto him forever and to never let him go.

At the end of one particular walk he asked her if they could meet early the next day at dawn, watch the sun rise and spend the day together.

On her way to meet him the next day she walked in the darkness before sunrise, almost dancing in her freedom and joined him  at the foot of a small hill. As they climbed to the summit she reached out and touched his hand.

 He almost rebuffed the contact but then allowed their palms to clasp and they  walked up the hill  so encoupled.

At the top of the hillock  they stood side by side, still hand in hand, looking to the East waiting for the Sun to rise and for the warmth of a new dawn to bathe them.

She  took the man  in her arms. She reaching around him and holding  him  close to her. 

She felt  that  by having him  in her arms she would never have to feel alone and unloved again.

And then she heard an exultation of skylarks rise from the heathland about them and as the birds flew into the sky  and filled the air with their song, a charm that would summon the dawn and  shower the countryside  beneath with their blithe spirit she felt her heart fill with love  and sing a joyful song as  it too ascended into the heavens.

As they were holding each other a shaft of light from the sun, as yet still below the horizon illuminated some high gossamer clouds and in them she could see the wings of  the angel of love and peace blessing this new day

They spent the morning together enjoying the moorland life and she shyly read to him some poems that she had written, but at  midday the spell was shattered by the sounds of a shepherd in the near distance whistling to his dogs and of the bleating of  sheep being herded  to Haworth to be fleeced.

He gently  let go her hold on him and although they passed the pleasant afternoon  in each other’s company something was lost, something was missing.

As the sun began to set he saw, away in the distance a grey cloud forming that would bring about a storm before too long he  said:

“I have to leave.”

As she watched the man walking away she could see high up  in the sky the wings of  the Angel of  fringed blood red by rays of the setting sun, flying  away, never to return. 

He moved away from Yorkshire the next day to avoid the thunderstorm that he had seen building up and that would have drenched and drowned him if he had stayed there.

No birds sang as she walked back to the Parsonage…