ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="keywords" content="uneven days, unevendays"> <meta name="description" content="Uneven Days"> <title>Uneven Days - Visiting Meriton on the Wold</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../standard.css"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico"> </head> <body> <div class="imagename"> <img src="../unevendays.gif" alt="unevendays"></div> <div class="nav"> <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/unevendays">Music</a></div> <div class="nav1"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1052328">Books</a></div> <div class="nav2"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/unevendays/">Photos</a></div> <div class="nav3"><a href="http://unevendays.livejournal.com/">Blog</a></div> <div class="nav4"><a href="../writing/index.html">Other Writings</a></div> <div class="nav5"><a href="http://books.dreambook.com/zaf/unevendays.html">Guestbook</a></div> <div class="nav6"><a href="mailto:kindle@unevendays.co.uk">Contact</a></div> <div class="navhome"><a href=../index.html">Home</a></div> <div class="main"> <div class="head">Visiting Meriton on the Wold</div>[ <a href="index.html">Writing</a> ] [ <a href="../index.html">Home</a> ]<br><br> Merle got off the train and looked around for her first glimpse of Meriton on the Wold. The station was like any other small station in the country, but eerily deserted. She was the only person alighting and no-one got on. The only other people on the platform were the guard and a man she assumed was the lawyer she was meeting. He smiled and walked over to her.<br><br> "Miss Armer?" She nodded. "I'm Mr Dunstone. It's a pleasure to meet you. I knew your great aunt quite well."<br><br> "Thank you," she replied. <br><br> It had been quite a shock when she had received his letter telling her that a great aunt Agatha that she didn't know she had had died, leaving her a cottage in the Cotswolds! She had decided to visit the cottage, tidy it up and clear out as much as she could before selling it, so Mr Dunstone had offered to meet her at the station with the keys.<br><br> They walked down some deserted streets past some lovely old cottages. It did not take them long to arrive at the cottage Merle now owned, and she admired it for some moments. The lawyer excused himself and walked away, as Merle let herself inside the cottage. <br><br> That she owned this house so easily seemed strange to Merle, and yet it seemed like hers. She felt at home. She kicked her shoes off and padded around the rooms, taking them in. After a perfunctory poking around, she went up to the attic. It was amazing - Merle had always loved attics, but this was perfect. Her great aunt had invested in a window and some decorating, to turn it into a proper room. It contained two huge bookshelves, a comfortable looking armchair and a desk. She went over to one of the bookcases and ran her finger along the spines. She stopped to pull out a collected verse of Lord Byron. She smiled, thinking of her Great Aunt sitting up here, reading the glorious words aloud to herself. She flicked through until she found her favourite: 'She Walks in Beauty'. She read the few verses aloud, and then replaced the book.<br><br> Spotting something else interesting, Merle walked over to the other bookcase. She had noticed several leather-bound notebooks that turned out to be her Great Aunt's diaries. They were written in a lovely old-fashioned copperplate hand, yet were still readable. She sat down in the armchair and began to read:<br><br> <i>'As the New Year rolls in, I begin yet another diary. This must be the seventy-fifth such journal, as I have now reached my ninetieth year. I count my birthdays with the birthdays of the year now, as I have forgotten the original date. I would surely find it in my multitude of diaries somewhere, but I really do not want to know that much!<br> 'I have again made several resolutions that I know I shall not follow, but making them helps me to follow then for a while at least. The first is that I will cut down on chocolate. For all of my ninety years, my love for it remains as strong as when I was a child and only allowed one tiny square each week on the Sabbath after Sunday Lunch. I eat far too much of it and my doctor tells me I must cut down, if not give it up altogether.<br> 'My second resolution is to start making my homemade bread and start cooking proper meals for myself again. It's much too convenient to simply open a packet, so I have lapsed. Cooking is enjoyable still, however, and the fruits of hours of labour are delicious. <br> 'My third resolution is the one I make each year - to contact my sister and her family. It has been far too long for such a quarrel to continue. I have never fulfilled it yet, but perhaps this year will be the exception. I have heard that I have both a niece and a grandniece, neither of whom have been told anything about me or what our quarrel was about. I pray that they never know.'</i><br><br> Merle was already fascinated. That short passage had turned her great aunt into a person, and created a mystery. She could easily empathise with the writer, could almost hear her speaking as she read. And it implied that there was some secret in the quarrel between her great aunt and her grandmother. Some conspiracy. Merle wanted to know more.<br><br> She read on, discovering a little of her great aunt's life. She did not write frequently, but when she did it was fluent and kept her attention. Merle couldn't help thinking that her aunt would have made an excellent journalist for her ability to turn even something commonplace interesting. The entries were interspersed with parts of conversations with other villagers. Merle couldn't decide if they were fact or fiction, for there were many anecdotes in the text describing cats, horses, shop customers and yoga teachers that Merle couldn't quite believe were real. <br><br> After reading for a while, though, she started to feel a little dizzy. She got up and went back downstairs to explore the garden. There was a huge herb patch, and she picked a handful of different types, luxuriating in the smell of them. She took them inside with her and put them in a vase she found in one of the kitchen cupboards. In the same cupboard, she found a kind of ornament made mostly of dried herbs. She hung it on the cupboard door.<br><br> She went back into the attic and continued reading her Aggie's diary. The everyday details of her life seemed so familiar to her that she was surprised. Even the people she knew seemed like people she herself had met. Perhaps it was the vividness of the writing. As a journalist, she could not help but think that Aggie herself would have been a good writer.<br><br> When her legs grew stiff from sitting curled in the chair, she went to explore the upstairs rooms. She found the room that was Aggie's and sat at the dressing table. She automatically picked up the hairbrush, and watched herself in the mirror as she brushed her long hair. She jumped when she felt as if a hand had been placed on her shoulder, but as the mirror showed her, there was no-one there. <br><br> The next morning, Merle felt a little strange. She brushed out her hair and twisted it into a bun. It wasn't a style she usually wore, but for some reason she felt as if it would be a good idea. She remembered that she had forgotten to phone her fiancé Piers, who was on a business trip, but she dismissed him as she went to read some more of Aggie's diary. <br><br> Later, she found an old photograph album and flicked through. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, and so were the names written below, but she admired the lovely old photos. Suddenly, she spotted a picture of two young women. The caption read: 'Mary and Agatha aged 21'. They were twins, but that was not what drew her attention. They were not similar looking at all, but Aggie looked almost identical to Merle herself. She wore her hair in a bun and smiled at the camera as if she knew a secret. <br><br> She went back to reading the diary, eventually dozing off in the warmth of the attic and the embrace of the chair. <br><br> When she woke, she stretched, smiling and went out into the suddenly busy street. The people smiled, and one man stepped forward.<br><br> "It's good to have you back, Aggie," he replied. "We missed you." <br><br> [ <a href="index.html">Writing</a> ] [ <a href="../index.html">Home</a> ]<br><br> </div> </body> </html>