It isn't every day one falls in love.
It isn't every day one falls in love with someone forbidden.
Unfortunately, just under the large oak tree, that's precisely what happened. Eleanor met Mary. Mary, the recent widow, with her golden blonde hair and boisterous laugh and contagious smile. A face that would be perfect peppered with kisses and flushed a rosy pink.
Eleanor wasn't much to see. Long, dark brown hair, with no curl, hung limply to the middle of her arms. Her stare was cold, her smiles were scarce, her icy blue eyes cutting into every passerby. Her tongue was sharp, as she was often reprimanded for. Her face too angular, her nose too crooked, her stance too aggressive, she was as intimidating as a woman could be.
Rumors spread. Fast. The women who would sit out washing clothes were terrible gossips, the men in the barn would occasionally slip in an accusation, and the children refused to even hide their words from the subject. One little girl was brave enough to say Eleanor had the face of a horse to her face, and Eleanor disappeared, "in a fit of rage". She was described by all as rash and vain and prideful.
Eleanor was just a girl. A young girl. A girl of 16, left to her own devices far too much. And Mary was a breath of fresh air, an escape. When the rumors got to be too much, she would run to the old maple tree. There, always, would be Mary. Sitting, waiting, like a blooming flower in spring. Her voice like birdsong, her touch like a summers breeze. Her. All Eleanor though of, all Eleanor needed, all Eleanor wanted, was her.
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RomanceEleanor was an aggressive and cold woman. Mary was a pious widow. Was their love meant to be?
