Electronic fiction by ladyhildegarde
†
Dachte
ecember 7, 1888. The nights are long, and darkness swallows me whole at times. My habits are patterned by my sister's weeping, which ebbs and flows like a relentless tide. There is no help for her. Those who might have lent aid are long fled from this place, or dead. The only comfort to me in this melancholy is Gisela's gentling presence.
She is indispensible. She makes my tea and Hildegarde's broth, and soothes her fevered brow with damp linen, and dries her tears expressionlessly. I still know nothing of Gisela's secret unhappiness, any more than I understand Hildegarde's, any more than I can help my own uneasy heart, but I will not question these small reprieves from bitter duty.
Last evening Father took an unpleasant spell and Gisela shut him up in the library with herself for hours. I crept to the door and listened pertly but could hear her gentle murmur and no more. What words pass between them is a mystery to me, and whether she be his secret lover, or an unmentionable relation to his pedigreed daughters, I have no idea.
If blood be bond it has no psychic hold, for I can no more guess what is in my sister's mind than I can my father's. All I know is that he is gone, and she is bound to a fit of insurmountable melancholy, and there is no help for it, and God help me, who dries her tears, as the daffodil petals in the courtyard dry my own.
†
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Last update
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:14 AM