Step into the Rainbow - Colin R Brookfield (best selling autobiographies TXT) 📗

together in the sun.

There were only two letters on the doormat, which rather surprised Jill, given the amount of cards and letters that she had dispatched to friends and relations. It was with a feeling of confusion that she read the contents of the first letter. It was from the Country Cottages people.

Dear Mr. Spencer,

We were sorry to discover that you did not arrive as arranged at Bramble Lane. However, it is regretted that due to these circumstances, we are unable to refund your deposit.

Yours sincerely...........

 

All kinds of suspicions began crowding into Jill’s mind. No, he’s not that type of person. How many women have made that mistake? she thought, remembering how uncharacteristically quiet he had been on holiday – hardly mentioning his fishing.

“Peter, I need a word with you!”

“Don’t be silly Jill, there’s been a mix up. I’ll get a letter off to Mrs. Persill right away. No I won’t. George will confirm that he left me at Bramble Lane and just to further satisfy you, when he makes his usual trip tomorrow, I’m sure he won’t mind parking his car at the end of the lane and taking a walk up to the Persill’s cottage. We can give him a large bunch of flowers to deliver on my behalf, and he can sort out this payment business at the same time.”

“Do I hear this right?” spluttered Jill, “You stayed at a cottage for a whole week, seemingly unpaid for, with people who were not expecting you?”

“Please,” said Peter, “I’m as nonplussed as you are. Let’s drop the subject. George will get it sorted out for us.”

Knowing that bad news seldom comes alone, Peter opened the second letter. He hoped that by doing so, any more bad news might be presented in a more favourable light.

“It seems we have to see the solicitor at three-thirty this Saturday,” he said. “It’s about a parcel that was entrusted to them by grandfather, to be given to us after his death.”

The following Friday evening they were both waiting with some trepidation for George to knock on the door. They were having a cup of coffee in the kitchen when he arrived.

Jill opened the door. “At last!” she gasped, “I’ve been biting my finger nails over this. Come on in.” Jill took a surprisingly short time settling him down with a hot drink. “Now, what’s the Bramble Lane story?”

“Better sit down both of you,” he replied, “because you won’t get much satisfaction from the answer.”

Suddenly a cold chill went through Peter. “Before you say any more George, I want to tell you both the full story. I couldn’t bring myself to do so before, because I thought it was all too bizarre to be believed.”

After Peter had finished, they all went quiet. Then George broke the silence.

“It so happens,” he said, “that when Peter and I drove out of the village towards Bramble Lane, we were on what they called ‘the old road’. The new road that replaced it, branched off sharply to the left just outside the village and, typical of rural villages, nobody had bothered to signpost it. Anyway, the roads came together again fifteen miles further on. I checked this new road and guess what? I discovered Bramble Lane right where it was expected to be but, it was not our Bramble Lane; this one was much wider with a tarmac finish, so I turned the car around and took the old road. I checked it twice from one end to the other and there was no lane to be found anywhere. I then went to the village library and you’ll never guess! There used to be an AMBLE Lane on the old road and it led to a sort of cottage-cum-farm. The name of the people that lived there was ‘Persill’, but get this, the Persills died over NINETY years ago. The land owners demolished the empty buildings; the unwanted lane had its hedges uprooted and the plough took care of the rest.”

Jill and Peter looked at each other in total perplexity. The story was unbelievable.

“It’s almost as if the cottage fulfilled the destiny of its name, doesn’t it?” George said in wonderment.

The following Saturday, Peter presented himself at the solicitor’s office and collected the parcel.

“Well?” Jill intimated, nodding towards the package that sat on the end of the dining room table, “are we frightened to open it?”

“Not at all,” he replied, “I just thought you would like the privilege.”

Once inside the wrapping paper, they discovered a sealed letter and a bulging folder with his grandfather’s name on it.

“I didn’t know your grandfather whiled his time away with this sort of stuff,” said Jill as she opened up the folder and took out several pages. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Well, he wouldn’t have left it if he hadn’t wanted me to hear it, now would he?”

“Well I hope you like poetry,” she said, “because there seems to be a lot of it. I’ll just read you a couple of short ones. This one’s called ‘Brief Allotted Whiles’.

How many candles lit and guttered

that left their scent upon the air;

but that was in a bygone time

and not a trace is left to share.

 

So many feet have come and gone

that brought their sadness and their smiles

that left to each along the way

cherished thoughts, for brief allotted whiles.

 

The next one’s called ‘The Thrushes Song’

 

Lesser moments come and perish

and then a moment left to cherish,

a heart that’s touched by something gone

as flies away the Thrushes Song.”

 

“Goodness me Jill, even the poetry seems related to my experience. Don’t read any more.”

Peter picked up the sealed envelope and opened it. Then having read aloud the customary preamble, he moved on to the more relevant details. It was in his grandfather’s handwriting:

 

“And now Peter, there is something I wish to say that should have been said a long time ago.

Originally my name was William Persill and not William Spencer, as you have always known me.

I was born and raised by my parents to the age of twelve at ‘Sanscroft’, in Amble Lane. Sadly though, my father suddenly became very ill and eventually died. My mother struggled on for about another year against impossible odds through a very severe winter, then fell seriously ill herself.

I remember her saying to me during her last moments that I was to have the gold ring with the sovereign in it. She said, “You remember the city gentleman that stayed with us for the fishing, the one that caught a piece out of his left ear with his fishing gaff, and gave us the seven and sixpence when he left? Well, I put the seven and six aside for a rainy day, you’ll find it with the ring, in the drawer by my bed”.

Well, after my mother died, the land owner kindly found a family called Spencer to take me in, and eventually I was given their name.”

 

Their concentration was suddenly broken as something fell from the folder that Jill was holding. It rolled across the table and came to a halt in front of Peter. It was the ring.

“That’s impossible!” Peter exclaimed. “I gave it to that small boy last wee...” With his voice trailing off, he hurriedly fetched a small pin and pressed it into the aperture on the side of the ring. With a sharp click its claws sprung open and the sovereign fell to the table, the thin gold base upon which the coin had rested carried the initials W P.

Jill stared at the initials. “This is incredible! And yet, you gave this very ring to a young William Persill.” She stared at Peter’s damaged left ear. “The man that gave him that ring also damaged his left ear with a gaff, stayed for one week and paid seven and sixpence.”

In Peter’s clenched hand, there was a tiny silver framed picture of a pretty yesteryear young lady. He put it back in his pocket for good; perhaps too much had been said and shown already.

There was something else inside the folder, so Jill tipped it out. A small drawstring bag dropped heavily onto the table and jingled like old money.

Anecdotes and Poetry

Gentle Clouds and Other Things

Upon these high blue vaults,

a fitful artist’s hand at play

that in a trice dissolves, and then

refashions in another way.

 

Across those wind awakened skies

of shifting shapes that scurry,

that scarcely for a moment frame,

and thence to new life hurry.

 

Then earthward cast their mirrored forms

to dance the lands and sea

and hold the eye enchanted

at each fresh geometry.

 

And yet, this fugitive of form

bereft it seems of being,

belies a constancy of life

that is elusive to the seeing.

 

But little changed, the Phoebus eye

its battles for ascendancy,

and Selene still the parian form

playing interlunar truancy.

 

Though when the world slept silent

of all breathing animation,

those restless but attendant clouds

were playing mother to creation.

 

Yet, constant still upon the air

in freshly formed attire,

faithful to its melting moods

that gently downwards spire.

 

So weeps to earth their progeny

like tears of sparkling gems

in the magic of the alchemy

that from golden Phoebus stems.

 

Fond Memories

Fond memories haunt their favourite places

favourite things and favourite faces,

things of yore that gather lustre,

tucked away awaiting muster.

 

Either Way, a Price to Pay

Love unlooked for, never found,

by chains of fondness never bound,

nought to care for or be cared

of love’s felicities impaired.

 

Love like wine has tendencies,

its fondness forms dependencies,

but wine excluded from the list

is untasted and thus unmissed,

no intoxicants to make their call

through their symptoms of withdrawal.

 

But love that stayed and never flew

that grew into a part of you,

one day it must be torn away

and maimed, insipid life must stay.

 

Yesteryear’s Dreams

Small girl tucked up in her bed

the candle flared, the shadows fled,

thoughts and pictures filled her mind

shadows returned to chase and find.

 

Over toys and dolls they prance

that join in the lively dance,

the candle guttered, ceased to shine

a sleeping child, as clocks strike nine.

 

She Shames the Sun

Her radiance doth put the sun to shame

to cause it hide behind a cloud its flame.

 

When night in folly makes its presence found,

her luminescence casts its light around,

confounding night, dawn’s chorus thus misled,

causing creatures of the night seek early bed.

 

Primordial Mysterium

Flora’s colours scents, verdant hue,

Knew long the earth ere fauna grew,

‘tis bound to be this way around,

for fauna’s needs aren’t barren ground.

Things to taste, to smell, to see,

serving no receptive faculty,

No eye yet born to gaze the land,

Nor imprinted foot upon the sand.

Yet implicit there in flora’s form,

the opening of the eye would certain dawn.

 

Should I Trust These Eyes

Sat well that smile upon her face

untrespassed by a frown

evoking heady imagery

that none but she could crown.

 

Though should I trust these smitten eyes

that know of images and nothing more

that are times too eager pleasing

that have served me false before.

 

But my feelings tell me I succumb

to thoughts presaging shame

for not once did I consider

her fears could be the same.

 

Pussy’s Deliberations Upon Paws and Effect

Would I cringe in terror

in a haunted house?

No, I’d fall asleep with boredom

unless I’d found a mouse.

But you wouldn’t find a human

spend a night in there,

could this mean cats have problems

not seeing what’s not there,

or could the answer to this riddle be

that ghosts just play unfair?

 

Imagine us in uniform,

would we be officious,

would all unregulated things

seem to us suspicious?

 

Calvinistic reformations

and dubious moralities,

are we cats that paranoid

about our own mortalities?

 

Are all moggies superstitious?

Does a walk around a ladder

seem to them,

the more judicious?

 

Do we