12:26 p.m. - 2009-02-16
A book and a confidence
Well, Kids, here we are again. The beginning of another week. I hope you are looking forward to it and that it goes well for all of you.
I finished reading WIDEACRE by Philippa Gregory yesterday. The book is 556 pages long. The description on the front inside cover compares the main character, Beatrice Lacey, to Scarlett O'Hara. They both loved their ancestral home very much. Beatrice Lacey is not a heroine in my mind...she was definitely not "a woman to admire and emulate for her achievements and qualities" which is a definition in Webster's dictionary. However the dictionary does go on to say..." the principal female character in a literary or dramatic work" ...so maybe my interpretation of a heroine is wrong.
Whatever the case, Beatrice Lacy is no Scarlett O'Hara. She does love her home and the land and puts that love above all other things. She realizes her attachment to the massive countryside that belongs to her father when she is just 4 years old. She follows her father around every day on horseback. They check on the sheep and the crops and the people who live on the land. She soon becomes beloved by all the peasants and trade people who work and live there. She is knowledgeable about the effects of all 4 seasons, the care and nurturing of every living thing there. She wants nothing more than to live there forever.
When she is a few years older, her father makes a casual comment that his son (her brother) will soon return from boarding school and be taught how to take over the Squire's duties. He tells Beatrice that she will be married and will leave to live wherever her husband chooses to take her.
That is when Beatrice truly understands that as a woman in Eighteenth-Century England, she will have no rights. She lives only where her father and then her husband allows. She has nothing, she will get only what her father leaves to her. if he leaves anything. When she marries, all she has will be given to her husband and then to any male heirs and she is nothing in the eyes of the Law.
Beatrice vows to become the true mistress of Wideacre and no one and nothing will stand in her way. Thus, begins her scheme to overcome all odds and get what she desires most...Wideacre.
After that, the chain of events that she starts when she is merely 14 years old becomes the driving force of her life. She begins the grand scheme to get Wideacre as her own and manipulates and causes the destruction of everything around her until there is nothing left for her to do.
I understand there are 2 other books in this saga. I look forward to reading them as well. The titles are THE FAVORED CHILD and MERIDON.
Wideacre was Philippa Gregory's first novel. She went on to write many books about historical times. She has written over 15 adult novels and several children's novels. She continues to live in England.
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I was happy that so many people commented on my last blog. It is interesting what memories we have and how something small....a scent, a picture, a song.... can bring back those old thoughts so vividly.
Speaking of memories, I just recalled another.
Some of you will remember that last October, I met a woman who is half Apache. She is very spiritual, very knowledgeable about Indian culture and also seems to have a sixth sense about the world around her. I consider it a real compliment that she became comfortable with me. I was told by my BIL that she doesn't open up to many people due to her background of abuse. One day RH (retired husband), BIL, she and I were going to a casino to gamble. It would take a couple of hours in driving time. She and I were sitting in the backseat of the vehicle and she told me that she wanted to tell me something private. She said she thought I would understand.
And this is what she told me.
She has been married a couple of times. She and her "then" husband (who was also half Indian but of a different tribe) were living off the land. In that area, people were allowed to camp and were not bothered by the government. They had some children who went to school every day by school bus. She and her husband would catch small game, fish, cook and keep their camp area clean. They didn't have regular 40 hr a week jobs and were trying to make it in the wild. They also wanted their children to appreciate nature and their love of the land.
They had recently moved to a state park area where there was water and small game and they were comfortable. The area they lived in was near a rockface. Every day the two of them would sit and look at this rockface. They both felt drawn to the area somehow. Finally one day, after the children had caught the school bus, the couple decided they were going to climb the rock and see what was on the top. As they started out; they found what appeared to be an old pathway among all the brush and overgrowth. They started up and it wasn't long when my friend said she felt herself "in another place". She looked around her and saw her husband dressed in Indian style. He was bare chested, he was leading an Indian horse with warrior markings. She looked down at herself and she was also dressed in an Indian outfit with beads and rawhide fringe. The horse had red and white painted handprints on its flank.
She said the red prints were for the Indians that he had killed in battle and the white were for the white settlers. She didn't feel surprised to see any of this but felt like she knew where she was and why she was there.
She also became aware of a small infant in a cradle board tied to the back of the horse.
She knew the baby was her daughter.
In real life and time, she continued to climb the rockface, following her husband. At some point, she asked him if he was "seeing" the same thing she was. He told her he was and described the same details to her. As they went up, they came to a level area and stopped to rest.
She saw "the other place" again. The horse became nervous and didn't want to go on. Then, a bear walked out from the side of the rocky area towards them. The husband prepared himself to fight. He had only a knife for a weapon. As the bear approached him, the bear rose up on its hind legs and they began to struggle. At some point the bear clawed the man on his left shoulder. He was badly wounded and started to fall. She yelled at the bear, hoping to scare it away. The bear turned towards her and the horse reared up. About the same time, the bear started towards the horse and it tried to get away. It jumped and kicked at the bear.
In almost a slow motion, my friend saw the cradleboard fly off the horse's back. She started to run towards the cradle board to catch her infant daughter. The board hit a tree and the baby was impaled on a broken branch. As the baby screamed, my friend screamed and then it was silent. Everyone and every thing stopped. The bear dropped down to its legs, the Indian husband was on his hands and knees, struggling to get up and my friend was looking at her baby dying.
When there was no sound from the baby, the bear and the man looked each other in the eyes. The bear seemed to realize there had been a death. In spite of the fact that the bear could have easily killed the man, the bear nodded its head, dropped back to all 4 legs on the ground, backed up into the brush and went away. The Indian man went to the child and told his wife the baby was dead. They gathered up their infant daughter, their scattered belongings and prepared to continue their journey to the top of the rockface.
My friend again asked her husband is he was seeing the same thing and he described it exactly as she saw it.
As they approached the top of the rockface, they were back in "the other place". They heard and saw the Indian campsite. The women were already chanting the songs of sorrow as they approached. My friend felt she did not belong to this tribe but was there because it was her husband's family. They were kind to her and offered her water and food. They prepared a ceremony for the dying infant. She was told that she had been kidnapped several months earlier by another tribe. She was told her husband had gone to get her back. The infant was fathered by the Indian who had kidnapped her and would have been an outcast in her husband's family tribe. it was better than the baby had died because she would not have had an easy life with this tribe.
While my friend was telling me this story, her voice was cracking and her tears were real. I felt the same thing and realized we had been holding hands as she told me the story. When she finished, I asked her what her husband said when this was done. She told me that she had a miscarriage when she was very young before she met and married her husband and the baby was a girl. She said her husband had been in a bar fight when he was younger and had scars on his left shoulder and the name of the man who attacked him was .......Bear.
I know there are a lot of sceptics out there but I also know that my friend was very affected by this story as she related it to me. She told me that she had never told anyone about this before. I choose to believe she had this experience.
