Right, so this is my first story to be submitted - so please don't be too mean! Er, so it's a bit contrived, I guess, and pretty hard-going for the average Joe. My Stuff And Rambles are usually kept hidden away from critical eyes, so yeah... Thank 'ee!

Part 1

Mr Howard was a fearsome creature, of turns, of chops and changes, all rankles and grumbles and, over all, disappointment. He was of a grand old age, and not shrunken or mellowed by his years; rather, he grew fiercer annually, like a good wine grows richer. His brows turned grey, his hair whitened and thinned and began to fall out, but his face absorbed austerity and command. He gained a stark posture, raising himself up above his wife’s little, uncomplicated head, and glaring down and beyond, to the sights surrounding him, which rarely pleased him, often provoked him, and caused an irritable bout of vexation. And when his wife died, in a quiet way, causing her soul to quickly wither away and depart, his eyes grew more trained to find faults, and that was how he remained.

He owned a house on the flatlands of Kent, near a wiry stream that more often contained mud than water, and was mostly in his study, reading books with words that hurt his eyes and left no impression on his mind. He valued himself to be an intellect, far above any of his acquaintances in mind, but it was apparent to anyone who knew him too well, that he strove to be clever, idealised to be clever, rather than was simply clever himself. At society events, that he was obliged to attend, he could comment that of course he had read War and Peace, and many years ago, at that. Most were satisfied; some were not. The truth is that Mr Howard did not care – or, at least, he was indifferent to it. Mr Howard saw fault in everyone but himself.

Mr Howard claimed to be a loose descendant of the famous Howard family. The line splintered at some time in the turbulent history of England, and the luckier Howards got away – they were untitled and unimportant, but they kept their heads, at least. Whether this was true, or simply wishful thinking on behalf of his ancestors, Mr Howard kept the idea alive. The house – it was called Fairborough, in those days – had a dear, little shrine to the days of brilliance. The Howard coat of arms hung proudly and intimidating on the wall, hovering over unworthy heads. There were portraits of leading figures of the family - only copies but treated with such delicacy and care. Mr Howard enjoyed taking a weekly stroll through the winding room, admiring what he knew was there already. It was a proudness that led him to do it – a place for him to savour. When he missed his wife, so long ago departed, or his children who had since moved away for families of their own, he had only to look at these objects of the past. Katherine Howard’s large, doe-like, pitying eyes soothed him – he had, since childhood, likened her to the Virgin Mary. She had done so much, been through such sorrow, the poor dear, and only as a child; a child in his eyes, anyway.

If any of Mr Howard’s acquaintances had heard his mind at times, ticking with sympathy over his ancestors’ souls, they would have exclaimed, ‘Good God, Walter, are you quite all right? You are rather sentimental all of a sudden.’ Mr Howard was not a sentimental man by nature, however. By nature, he surrounded himself with people and objects that would never arouse any passionate feeling. And when, at times, his mind did sink into some sadness, he never hesitated to cover it up with cold, hard facts and figures.

-*-

It was an intolerably hot day in May when a young man walked the length of the stream in Fairborough. Occasionally, he bent to look at the reflections in the water, and the agile boatsmen that glided along, unaware. The young man, at one point, took off his stiff, uncomfortable top hat and kneeled before the water. It was admirably clear today – more than he had ever remembered it – and, if it had been double the width, it would perhaps have made a pleasant watercolour. Lazing one slack finger in the stream, nostalgia arrested the young man. Often he thought bad things of the past, and he hardly ever remembered to acknowledge the good things. As contained and restrained as his childhood had been, there had been immense beauty to admire, and constant peace. The young man had not once experienced cruelty or inequality within Fairborough’s walls – only boredom, and lack of experience. He did nothing exciting, and that is why, like a housebound flower that grows to the nearest spot of light, the young man had strained for freedom.

The stream could not interest him for long. From a distance, he saw it in a new light; it was shrivelled and thin and didn’t really go anywhere. It had no comparison to the great lakes at Hollyrose, where the young man lived. In those lakes, there were trout and cod. In Fairborough’s piddling stream, he remembered that you were lucky to catch a newt. With a smile for the past, the young man walked onwards to the grove.

As said, it was a hot day – sticky and humid and airless. The flowers grew parched in the heat, and hung limply like traitors. The only things that flourished in the garden were the dogs, which hurdled out of the barn at one point. Breaking into a run and a chorus of barking, they headed for the stream, which had, a minute before, been still and idyllic. Now six dogs, of which the young man had known from puppies, ran past him and to the water-edge. They drank from it with such vigour that it was as though they had not drank for days. The young man watched them with a spirited eye – he knew them individually; their names were imprinted on his mind. But the dogs, if they saw him through their determination, only knew him as a stranger on the land. Another face; a face among many others.

The dogs had been let out by an old, gnarly fellow with a developing hunchback and skinny, shaking legs. The old man sighed to himself at the dogs. His sight was near gone but he heard them – their paws thudding on the hard earth as the bounded off; their barks ringing out across the fields.

The old man was Simon – he had always been at Fairborough; perhaps he was as old as the walls themselves. The young man could not remember him without a grey mop of hair and a face as lined as cat’s scratching board. He had kind, blue eyes, very distinct against his thick, leathering skin that was strongly tanned. The young man could not know this, but in his blindness, Simon’s eyes had dimmed and mellowed, and sat on his face with a simple serenity. Simon did not mind his lack of sight, for he knew plants by touch and texture, and could differentiate between them by their rich, heady smells. Simon had, also, designed the gardens’ layout himself, and he knew the place better than the back of his own hand.

Simon had spent the best part of his life in Fairborough’s gardens, both for work and pleasure. He dug up the vegetables in the allotments, he planted and watered the numerous flowers (he was more fond of shrubbery and vegetables than pretty flowers, but Mr Howard had a mind to keep colour in the garden, as memory to his wife) and he cared for the dogs. The dogs were not at all sensible or clever – they ran about chasing after clouds of dust, at times. But Simon had an attachment to them. He had never been good at talking to folk, and he especially never spoke to the aristocracy who cluttered up the place in summertime, but animals were his friends, for they expected nothing and they didn’t stick around. There was nothing better, to Simon, than a fleeting friendship; one that had its uses but went before vexation set in.

The young man knew Simon to be a reserved sort, who blushed and squinted under the strain of conversation. He’d say ‘nah, thank ’ee’ at the offering of tea, for he had ‘too much work on the old shoulders for idling.’ As a small, wide-eyed boy, too hemmed in to know the world, the young man who I have talked of was frightfully scared of Simon. He did not speak to Simon, but had witnessed him many a time, mumbling to himself and cussing all that got in his way. It had seemed to the young man – who was then a young boy – that quiet people were not calm and sweet-tempered as stereotype had it, but quite dissatisfied with the world. I dare say the young man never understood Simon, for Simon did not even understand himself.

The young man did not stop to speak with Simon, and instead, walked the grove three times over, only stopping at the sight of a figure far off, too distant to be recognised. The figure was cloaked in shocking red, and part of the fabric swayed softly in the slight breeze. It was a woman, but the young man was not interested for long enough to find out. The young man shrugged off suspicions, knowing that much had probably changed at Fairborough in nine years, and went of to the house, which was cloistered by sadness. The sadness struck the young man, and lowered his mood, too. Before, he had been bag of nerves, and now, at his endeavour’s conclusive moment, he was feeling horrendous pity, as well.