The girl wandered through the garden.
It was a big garden, not well-kept. It had fallen on evil days, but the evidence of past care was there, in the hedges that still followed their old patterns, in the overgrown patches of flowers and weeds that once had been beds, in the statues that stood, mossy and cracked, on their marble pedestals. The girl did not mind the garden reverting to its wild state. She had never seen the garden before, and she was enjoying it, especially in this hour of dawn.
She had just turned sixteen, on the cusp of womanhood. She stepped easily over the clumps of grass, and picked up a stone to examine it with mild curiosity in her eyes. It was not a stone; it was a seed of some type that had fallen from one of the tall trees. She did not know anything about the trees, and after she saw that it was a seed she went and dug into one of the overgrown patches of ground and put the seed into the soil. Maybe it would grow into a big tree. She hoped so.
She thought about breakfast. She did not much care for food, and her idea of breakfast was basic – coffee and marmalade on toast. She shrugged. She wasn’t hungry. Let breakfast wait. It wasn’t as if anyone would miss her anyway.
She rubbed her hand over the flat plane of her stomach and watched the sunrise. It turned the east red and then orange, a gentle red flush and then a fiery orange glare that shone over the sea. She watched it and felt happy. She felt happy in the garden. It was some time since she had last felt happy. But there was little she could find to be happy about, when her parents were dead and she had no money and her only way to make a living was as a governess for peoples’ spoilt children. She sighed. Maybe at least she could find some happiness in the garden.
She waited until the sun was well up, and then she turned and walked through the garden up to the house.
Copyright B Purkayastha 2008
It was a big garden, not well-kept. It had fallen on evil days, but the evidence of past care was there, in the hedges that still followed their old patterns, in the overgrown patches of flowers and weeds that once had been beds, in the statues that stood, mossy and cracked, on their marble pedestals. The girl did not mind the garden reverting to its wild state. She had never seen the garden before, and she was enjoying it, especially in this hour of dawn.
She had just turned sixteen, on the cusp of womanhood. She stepped easily over the clumps of grass, and picked up a stone to examine it with mild curiosity in her eyes. It was not a stone; it was a seed of some type that had fallen from one of the tall trees. She did not know anything about the trees, and after she saw that it was a seed she went and dug into one of the overgrown patches of ground and put the seed into the soil. Maybe it would grow into a big tree. She hoped so.
She thought about breakfast. She did not much care for food, and her idea of breakfast was basic – coffee and marmalade on toast. She shrugged. She wasn’t hungry. Let breakfast wait. It wasn’t as if anyone would miss her anyway.
She rubbed her hand over the flat plane of her stomach and watched the sunrise. It turned the east red and then orange, a gentle red flush and then a fiery orange glare that shone over the sea. She watched it and felt happy. She felt happy in the garden. It was some time since she had last felt happy. But there was little she could find to be happy about, when her parents were dead and she had no money and her only way to make a living was as a governess for peoples’ spoilt children. She sighed. Maybe at least she could find some happiness in the garden.
She waited until the sun was well up, and then she turned and walked through the garden up to the house.
Copyright B Purkayastha 2008
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