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ETERNAL REST

by LONGJON 

Posted: 18 July 2003
Word Count: 305
Summary: Part 4


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ETERNAL REST

Jonathon Mickelthwaite was a carpenter, and a good one. He had learnt his trade working for Uriah Ponsonby, cabinet maker to the gentry in Westminster and Belgravia. So Jonathon knew about mahogany and rosewood, sandalwood and teak, and so, when his oldest sister Susannah got married, he made her a wedding present. An absolutely splendid bed, a great canopied four-poster, with sandalwood inlays and black cast iron ball and claw feet.

Susannah was so proud of this bed that when she and her husband moved into their house in Camberwell, with its large, white, south facing windows, Susannah insisted on being carried, on the bed, to the front door of the house. The bed had a beautiful, soft white coverlet on it and the breeze lifted the sides as the men carried her and it looked liked she was flying on translucent wings.

Susannah always called the bed her marriage bed and it seemed to be the centre of her life. She had five children on it, although the sixth, a boy died at birth. The arguments she and her husband Samuel had he always called jousting, but the tousled bedclothes next morning showed that they had worked things out.

But Samuel was persuaded by an old school friend to put a large part of their savings into a prospecting company he claimed was being formed in the new United States. The money disappeared faster than the snow in spring, and Susannah and Samuel soon had to sell their beloved four-poster and to move out of their house into rented lodgings in Southwark.

It was shared accommodation and the long, single room looked just like a tunnel, with a cold concrete floor, just three windows and a dozen beds down each side.

The winter that year froze three of their children to death.






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Comments by other Members



Becca at 06:54 on 18 July 2003  Report this post
Hey, this looks intriguing! That's not all is it? I hope it's just the beginning of something, John.

LONGJON at 09:29 on 18 July 2003  Report this post
Hello Becca,

Boy, you must be up and about early. I posted this at about 4.30 p.m., New Zealand time, which ( with day light saving ) I think would be about 5.30 a.m. your time.
Anna set the group the task of taking the pieces that we had done to date, and weaving the essence of them into a final practice piece. Thus I guess that it hadn't been intended to go further (300 word limit) but it does rather seem to be wanting to go somewhere, doesn't it? I'll have to have a think about that. Actually, I've just thought what the next bit could be.

It's about 8 p.m. here now, and its cold by Auckland standards.We had a frost the other day!

Take care,

John P.

Becca at 19:42 on 18 July 2003  Report this post
Yes, 5.30 would have been about right, have to go to work at 7.45.
I loved the image of the woman on the bed, but, and this is absurd, when you said she had five children on it, I kind of thought for a second it was all in one go like a cat. I'm just sorid of course, and then I worried that the white bedclothes got all messed up. I'm obviously very tired tonight and should just stop rambling.
By the way, I was born in Mount Eden. I wonder if you know who Florence Harsant was?

LONGJON at 21:47 on 18 July 2003  Report this post
G'day Becca,

Isn't it great how one idea can lead to another, a sort of literary "pass the parcel."

When I came to NZ from the UK, in 1965, Mt.Eden was the first place that I lived and I have always had a soft spot for it. We were in Mt.Eden last weekend, an English guy has just opened a bookshop selling nothing but cookbooks! Hows that for chutzpah in an economic climate like NZ.

I have heard of Florence Harsant, she was an early nurse or health worker in country areas, wasn't she? Didn't she travel on horseback? I think that there is a street named after her in Mt.Albert.

It's Saturday a.m., I've got to head off to work. Take care, many thanks for your comments.

John P.

Becca at 07:28 on 19 July 2003  Report this post
Flossie was my great, great aunt. She died when I was in Africa in 1993 or something.
You know I do curse the need to earn my bread, when I found out about her I got as much material from the National Library in NZ and other archive places and dearly wanted to spend time in NZ to talk to the few people left, if any, who knew her. She was known as Te Maari. She made money from journalism and also wrote short stories which were not very good at all. There are odd parallels in her life and my life although I never knew about her existance.

Anna Reynolds at 20:29 on 21 July 2003  Report this post
John

I can see recurring themes cropping up in your work now and patterns of writing too. This is powerful and probably too big for the limit- it's bursting at the sides isn't it with wanting to get out and be that bigger story! The description of Susannah being carried into her marriage literally on the bed is beautiful, and there's pathos in the brother making it for her so carefully and with such love.

And the last line is like a whack in the gut- so simple, so devastating. I wondered if there's a way of developing this for a longer piece- probably a much longer piece if truth be told- does that interest you at all? Lovely writing and turns of emotion.


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