Trigger warning for murder and suicide. If I need to put anything else in please tell me.
Flowers
Elizabeth had always loved flowers. They never judged her for wearing her hair too high or her skirts too wide. The flowers never judged her for calling out to, for missing, siblings that weren't there. They were pretty. So pretty. Surely something so pretty could never bring heartbreak?
(The flowers did not bring it directly. They just provided the means for the man who did to come to her.)
It was no surprise to anyone who was familiar with the Skymshires that even though they could have afforded a man to come and do the garden Elizabeth did it all. Nor would it have come as a surprise that the flowers were the biggest and the brightest in the town and had won the main prize in the local flower show every year since Elizabeth had started running the garden.
This continued, but in a different location, once Elizabeth married. The man appeared to be nice enough, was quiet wealthy and the match was approved of by both society and all four parents. There was not much love between them but there did not need to be and Elizabeth, an optimist, believed that love might bloom between them. Besides, she had her flowers.
Her husband did not approve of her love for flowers and tried to hire a gardener. Elizabeth begged and pleaded with her husband, Thomas Jevision, and eventually convinced him to let her to compete in the local flower shower. If she came first place, she could continue to rule the garden. If she did not then she could not. She did win and the judges remarked that they were the best flowers they had ever seen.
They lived in small suburban village situated in one of the Home Counties. Most of the town's residents were middle class commuters and their households. Elizabeth and Thomas were in that number. Perhaps I they had been of one of the other classes what ruined their lives would have merely been the cause of a few broken plates. Perhaps not. As it was it ruined Thomas's life and cleaved Elizabeth's heat in two.
It started simply enough. Most devastating things do.
Elizabeth noticed that four of her precious flowers were missing. Most people would not notice this, and even if they did think there were fewer flowers they would just brush it off. Elizabeth did not. Flowers were her dearest companions and her greatest joy. (Her marriage was not going well and there was only one child, a girl named Catherine) Elizabeth started putting netting over her flowers at night and pledged to stand guard if more were stolen.
More were stolen and she fulfilled her pledge. It was on the thief's fourth attempt that she caught him.
He was a man of about her age. He was handsome, in spite of a criss-cross of scars on his visible body parts. That was not what drew her to him. It was something that she had felt only once before, when she had first met her husband. She had taken it to be love. It was not.
She slapped the man and told him to take her to see the girl that he deemed pretty enough to warrant flower theft. The man looked although he was about to object but she gave him a glare that she had never before been capable of producing. If it had not been for her flowers she would have continued to be incapable of doing so. The man complied.
(He took her with him but his reason was neither a girl nor pretty.)
The journey was long. The man did not speak. Elizabeth did not attempt to spark a conversation. After what the man had done she was itching for him to burn.
(He did. But not yet. Not until he had her heart in his hands and it burned with him.)
The journey was long. Far longer than Elizabeth would have expected it to be. Long enough so that Elizabeth panicked for a second. But only a second. Her flowers needed vengeance.
The journey was long but its end was abrupt. Elizabeth almost kept walking. After all, not many pretty girls spend time in graveyards.
The man clearly knew where he was going. He wove through the graves with practised ease and came to a stop in front of the one Elizabeth could only assume to be the destination. The grave was not quite grown over with grass and by the gravestone there was an almost dead lavender bush with her flowers arranged in the spindly sticks. Some of the flowers were dead. The Gravestone itself was of a simple design, dark white and with just, 'John Lawrence' carved into its uneven surface. A tree stump sat next to the grave. Elizabeth was unsure if it was symbolic, or just a seat. All in all, the grave was the kind that families with money to spare give to poor relations or cast out members.
Elizabeth was still angry at the man. She would have been angry no matter why the man was stealing her flowers. But she was secretly and slightly glad that he hadn't taken her to some unloved grisette.
The secret gladness was what stopped her from burying the man in the grave. The slight gladness was what led her to ask, "Who was he?"
"My dearest friend." Came the man's answer, short and sour.
Mr Jevision was at work. The cook was at a wedding. The maid was at a funeral in Yorkshire. Catherine had been taken on a day trip by the nanny. The flowers were watered. For once Elizabeth had time. She used that time to ask the man, "How did he die?"
The man looked away at nothing. "John was executed."
"What for?"
"Buggery."
"Where is the other man buried?"
"He isn't. John used the few moments he had before arrest to push the man out the window. John stayed put. I suppose that he thought the other man would have a better chance of escape that way."
"Did the other man escape?"
"He wasn't captured."
Elizabeth had no more questions to ask. The man had one.
"What is your name?"
Elizabeth did not believe that names had power. Elizabeth did believe that one turn deserves another.
"Elizabeth Jevision. It's a pleasure to meet you." She said the phrase in a slightly mocking way. Even she was not sure what, or who, she was mocking.
"Alexander Harrison." The man replied. Not to Elizabeth but to an old memory, almost of her.
Elizabeth had no excuse to leave and besides, there was something about graveyards that made her feel as though things less than half membered were swimming around. They did not surface. Or perhaps it was the man – Alexander. So she stayed. Not for long, half an hour perhaps? But she extracted a promise from Alexander not to take any more of her flowers but did not talk to him much otherwise. He escorted her home and for that her flowers still sometimes appeared by the graveside. Less frequently then they had been, however.
The lavender bush that was planted on John's grave began to flourish and at first was the only thing to do so. That changed when Catherine turned ten and started boarding school. Elizabeth had fought long and hard against her husband to allow her daughter to be more than just governess taught but she had succeeded and as a result the other flowers in the graveyard began to prosper as well.
The way in which Elizabeth often left the house with flowers of gardening equipment was duly noted by the household's staff. Elizabeth knew this. She also knew that the only person who would object to her doing do was her husband and he was always at work when she went out.
Elizabeth spent much time in the graveyard, though her own garden was her first priority. As a result of this she started to become friends with Alexander.
About a year after she had demanded he take her to the girl pretty enough to warrant flower theft Elizabeth gave Alexander yellow roses and told him to take her to the girl pretty enough to warrant flower theft Elizabeth gave Alexander yellow roses and told him that they were for him and not John
The second year after she again gave him yellow roses, but this time they had red tips. They were close enough so that she didn't need to say anything about them before she began working.
The third year was different as she gave him red roses. It was also different because she gave him a kiss. Not on the cheek or the forehead as you might kiss a brother but on the mouth. It was a rather chaste kiss but it was on Alexander's mouth and he kissed her back.
This opened a floodgate and soon the plants in the graveyard started to become a little neglected. They were still well cared for, Elizabeth had always loved flowers, but not as well as they had been before as she spent less time looking after them. She spent just as much time in the graveyard however.
This went on for some time. It was the happiest time in Elizabeth's life. With each passing hour she fell deeper and deeper in love. She was helpless and it was perfect.
But as Shakespeare said, all good things must come to an end. This is true for many things and it was true for Elizabeth.
A work colleague of her husbands died. He was barely an acquaintance so Mr Jevision did not bring his wife to the funeral or even tell her about it.
Elizabeth headed to the graveyard as usual, unaware that a funeral would be taking place. She met Alexander at John's grave and together they started work.
Unfortunately the part of the graveyard they had chosen to work in that day was very near to the part of the graveyard that the funeral procession Elizabeth's husband was part of chose to enter through.
Fortunately only Elizabeth's husband recognised her. However he watched her kiss Alexander, long and deep and loving as she had never kissed him.
Thomas Jevision had never loved his wife, or even particularly liked her. But he was a very possessive person, and always had been. His possessive nature extended to people and especially women as he, incorrectly, viewed them as inferior. He was also cunning and patient. When all three things are combined in a person it is a cocktail lethal to those who oppose that person.
In response to what he saw he took a few days off work and the next time Elizabeth went to the graveyard he followed her, knife in hand.
In a twist of chance devastating to Elizabeth and Alexander but perfect for Thomas, Alexander was able to come to the graveyard that day.
You can probably guess the results of such an encounter. The unfaithful wife, her lover and the cuckolded husband with a weapon. There are only really three answers to such an equation. He kills the lover, he kills the wife or he kills them both. This time the weapon holding cuckold killed the lover. This time the wife still ended up dead only this time it was not by the husband.
When he had done the deed Thomas left the knife behind. This only meant to reduce his chances of being caught, he did not wish for his wife to wield the knife herself. It backfired on him completely.
Just before Elizabeth plunged the knife into herself she wrote a letter to her daughter. It read as this;
My dearest Catherine,
Please forgive me. Forgive me for not being there when you are married. Forgive me for not being at the birthing of any of your children. Do not forgive me for being a bad mother. Do not forgive me for leaving you alone with your farther. I have not the strength to live with him after what he did. I will not say what he did so that this letter might reach you but I am so very sorry.
Your desperately sorry Mother,
Elizabeth
Before she wrote the letter and before she picked up the knife Elizabeth plucked two flowers from the nearest plant. That day they had not gotten any further with their gardening then meeting at the grave of another who died of love for Alexander so the flowers she picked were sprigs of lavender. At the time she thought it rather appropriate. Lavender is a flower of love first and foremost and second to that it is a flower of sleep and what is death but an eternal sleep?
The thud of a body hitting the floor. The sharp smell of blood. The rough touch of his broken skin against hers. The bitterness of regret, something she had never thought had a taste before. These are what accompanied Elizabeth out of this world. And the vibrant hues of her precious flowers. After all Elizabeth had always loved flowers.
AN: so I know I should be working on my other fic but I had this written and half typed up already so…
This is a reincarnation au but I'm sure you already realised. It takes place in the Victorian era, the 1880s to be exact. The graveyard is very loosely based on Dorking cemetery.
this story is dedicated to my old English teacher, Mrs Whetnal
Reviews and their many friends and relations are very welcome.