Write on Edge-Epitaph

Lemmington, England 1840

Charlotte was wandering through the church yard cemetery toward the bench where she often enjoyed sketching the church and parish school where her husband, Edward was vicar.  Edward had mentioned yesterday at tea about an unusual epitaph, so now she zig-zagged through the stones and monuments looking for the grave stone.  She soon found it in the older section of the cemetery, where stones had been up turned, lopsided and weathered.  The dates around it were of the last century.  No name was carved on the stone, only a verse:

Here lies a miser who lived for himself, who cared
for nothing but gathering wealth.

Now where he is and how he fares;
nobody knows and nobody cares

“How wry and pitiable to be known; only as a miserly man. “  She thought aloud. There was a pretty aspect of the parsonage in the distance, so she set about sketching it quickly.  She wanted to get back to the parsonage and show it to Edward, before tea time.

Charlotte and Edward had been married just a short six months. She had met him ten years ago when he first arrived in the village of Newburn as Deacon of the parish.   She was but a child of twelve.  With her parents long dead, she and her brother John resided with their spinster aunt, in a small cottage at the edge of Newburn Hall.   With her tiny income, Aunt Jane was able to teach them to read and enjoy books from the circulating library. She encouraged Charlotte’s drawing and sent John to the Parish Day School for several years.  That was where they made the acquaintance of the young deacon, Edward Stephenson. 

Aunt Jane would often tell them reminiscences of her youth when she and their mother were young ladies of wealth and standing in the neighbourhood, but nothing was said of how they became so impoverished.  However, she was silent on the circumstances of their parent’s marriage and death. One of the stories that neighbours told, was that Aunt Jane and their mother had been at the mercy of a miserly relative who did nothing to put them forward in society, leaving them nothing but the cottage and a tiny inheritance. 

As the years passed, her brother eventually went to work clerking for the Newburn Railway. This supplemented the small income of their aunt and by living carefully, they enjoyed a satisfactory life with a small circle of friends. With no dowry, she had little expectations of making a good marriage.  So everyone was surprised when, after receiving a church living of his own, Edward proposed.

Charlotte now securely ensconced in the parsonage of Holy Saviour Church, Lemmington, seemed unconcerned by the circumstances of her former life.  She opened her book to look again at the sketch before showing Edward her drawing. She observed the gravestone in the forground, thinking it ruined the sketch of her lovely home and began to fill it in with flowers and grasses. 'That is much better," she thought.

For this week, write a fiction or creative non-fiction piece in which an epitaph features prominently. I found mine at The Epitaph Browser.  It is from Lemmington, England. found under Anonymous. I found a Lemington in Northumbria near Newcastle and an appropriate parish in which I set my story.