Old Friends, New Friends

by Stardwarf

Hello! I am so glad to have company! It has been ever so long since someone sat and passed a bit of time with me. You are so sweet to come here and visit me. Why, you remind me of my dear friend Leonora! Your hair is even the exact shade of hers, imagine that. It seems so funny, she always seemed so unique, i never thought whether anyone else was like her in any way... But you are, you even have her sweet nature, you must, to come here and visit me like this. Sit my new friend, let me tell you a bit about Leonora. Just humor this soul who gets so few visitors. Really, it would be very impolite not to.

Oh, it was all years ago... certainly long before you ever drew a breath, or as that tacky saying that is so often heard these days, "long before you were a gleam in your daddy's eye..." See, tacky. Nothing anyone would have dreamed of saying in my day.

Ah... sorry, i do tend to lose my trail of thought these days.

Well, many years ago, when i was a girl, i had a wonderful friend named Leonora. We were at boarding school together, our parents deciding that the waste of educating girls was worth their free social schedules.

She and I got on very well. We spent all of our free time together, dreaming and giggling as girls away at boarding school do especially well.

I remember one holiday from school, we returned home and both stayed at her home. Her mother had died mysteriously the year before, and her father was rarely home. We usually had the entire estate to ourselves. Her father didn't even keep servants on the estate. He had gotten rid of them all shortly before Leonora's mother died. Every now and again, when her father and his new wife were away from the estate for an extended period, the old cook would come and stay, to "keep the away the awfuls" as her father said. So while Leonora and i were there that holiday, cook came by several times, but mostly we were entirely alone. The house had changed quite a bit since Leonora was had lived there, before going away to the boarding school. She and I would walk down a hallway and suddenly come to a dead end, where Leonora was certain she remembered there being two more rooms. Several times we attempted to create a diagram of the layout of the house, but after becoming confused several times, we gave it up and decided that it was simply an affection of the memory.

"Things always seem different when you are a child," Leonora would reason, "so it is no wonder that the house seems so at odds with my memory when it has been so long since I spent time here."

It did seem to bother Leonora a bit that she was unable to find any of her mother's things. We searched at some length for any remnant of her mother, but when we could findnothing, we decided that her mother's things must have been cleared away to avoid hurting the feelings of her father's new wife.

One night, while her father and his wife were away, she and i stayed awake the entire night, frightening ourselves with stories of what might have happened to her mother, and why rooms might have been walled up. Quite late, with only one candle and having worked ourselves up quite a bit, we both were certain that we heard a woman whispering to us. Leonora never told me what she heard, but i was quite certain that i heard a woman whispering to me, "Leonora must know, and she has it in her too..." But i never spoke of this to Leonora, as i was afraid that it might upset her. And certainly, we were both just being silly girls, frightening ourselves. I am certain that we both imagined those voices.

Back at boarding school, we spoke often about what our lives would be: who we would marry, where we would live, considering names for our children and discussing the quality of one name over another.

But to both of us, the most important discussions were always the ones where we tried to contrive excuses to remain close when we had families of our own to change our plans. She would make up brilliant stories to tell our eventual husbands, each more wild than the last. Leonora was always better at making up elaborate stories than I. No matter what, though, even if our husbands did keep us geographically apart, we promised that we would always keep in touch.

But of course, we became civilized ladies with families of our own and no time for dreaming and giggling. It was funny, after always thinking that our husbands would keep us apart, what little we did keep in contact was always through my husband, who seemed to see her quite often in town. He would mention at dinner, "Leonora had a new dress when i saw her today, why don't you get some new material for a dress?"

Or he would mention something witty that she had said, "Leonora told me the most clever joke today."

Poor Leonora, her husband must have done very little that is helpful for her to require going into town herself so much. Leonora wasn't quite so lucky as i, my Stephen would happily go into town for me for the smallest item and tiniest whim.

Leonora was such a dear, though... I remember the sweet biscuits she brought when she visited me.... after that trouble. Just think, that so dear and genteel a lady had made sweet biscuits for me with her own hand! Not made by her cook, or bought, but made by her own hand, and brought to a woman who she had not seen for some time, despite the fact that we had indeed remained geographically close. And she never asked me if any of those awful things were true. We spoke happily as if we were still two carefree girls at boarding school. She refused to even share the biscuits she had made when i tasted one. She wanted me to have them all. "Angelina, you keep them all, these awful men would never think to give a woman sweet biscuits! They are to busy playing jailers to think of the necessities a lady requires, much less niceties."

While the whole town fluttered about, wondering what to do about "the woman who had poisoned her husband," Leonora kept my spirits up. And when i had tried to tell her how all that they were saying was untrue, she simply smiled and said "Don't Angelina, I know you could never do such a thing!"

But, a few days later, when it was all over, we didn't see each other.

I certainly thought she would be a bit happier when i showed up for a visit. Oh, she probably thought that i was upset about that business between she and my husband... but if i didn't let my death stop me from keeping in touch with my dear friend, the sweet friend who brought me those sweet biscuits right before i died and solved the problem of what to do with a suspected murderess, the dear woman who comforted an innocent woman before she herself died of suspicious causes, if i didn't let death stop me from keeping in touch with her, why would i let that business stop me?

And since that visit of mine seemed to have literally "scared her to death" then i suppose that your modern day feminists would believe that in the end i got my justice with Leonora. But what do they know of friendship, right, my new friend?

Oh, you must go? What a shame. Perhaps you will come and visit me again soon? I do so want us to keep in touch.

Back to the Halloween page.
Back to the Den.