Demelza- short story
One bright and sunny morning when the leaves were turning gold and blackberries had lost their flavour, Demelza went for a long walk through her favourite meadow.
She meandered through the long grass, trying not to trample the last of the wildflowers that grew there. The sun warmed her back, so she walked head bent, searching for the rarest flowers that grew in secret places under the old hedge, and in the shade of the tall oak trees. She looked everywhere, but her favourite flowers have disappeared.
A little hungry now, and not without some sadness, she finally turned for home, hands stuffed deep into her pockets and feet kicking the long grass flat, so that a sneaking pathway behind her.
Just as she was about to open the five-bar gate, that lead into the lane, something drew her towards the shade of the dry stone wall. Stooping idly down, she picked up a flower that had somehow survived. Although a little wilty, it was still quite beautiful, and a delicate fragrance lingered on its soft petals.
Determined to keep this last special flower, she ran quickly down the lane, carrying it in her cupped hands.
When she reached the cottage, she was in such a hurry, that she kicked the kitchen door open and made straight for the stairs to her room. But before she was halfway past the kitchen table, there was a crash of breaking china.
She turned to see her mother holding a teapot.
The lid lay on the stone floor in pieces. I won't trouble you with the details of what happened next, because they are best forgotten, but later that evening, the flower was gently placed in the lidless teapot, which, after much thought, ended up on her windowsill.
She was quite sure that the flower would survive the winter, and despite all the words of wisdom from her mother about flowers dying, and old teapots, harbouring dust, she refused to touch it.
Eventually, after the rain and gales of winter had been quietened by the gentle rays of the spring sun, Demelza took the teapot down from its resting place on the windowsill, and held it in her hands, wondering what to do with it, and remembering the golden days of autumn that seemed so far away.
"Perhaps I was wrong to keep it" she thought, looking at the teapot, which had left a faint ring on the painted windowsill. She opened her window and gazed out to where the meadow sparkled with countless glistening spiders’ webs, lit by the early morning sun.
Then, something, an almost imperceptible movement on the dead stalk of the long-faded flower caught her eye. Slowly – slowly, a small creature climbed up the stalk and onto the rim of the teapot. She put the teapot down carefully in a patch of sunlight by her bed and settled down to watch.
After what seemed an age, the little creature opened its crumpled wings, and she watched amazed, as delicate veins filled and the sun dried its wings into a perfection of blue more intense than a sky on a summer’s day. Then the little blue butterfly moved its wings, quicker and quicker, until it lifted into the air and flew out through the open window.
Demelza watched in silence as the butterfly zigzagged its way over the lane, along by the drystone wall, until finally she lost sight of it, far out over the meadow.
End
