Wellington Gate

His walk into town would prove fateful that day, As his mind wandered idly while finding his way. His footsteps were brisk like fall chill in the air, Past Wellington Gate, south of Denby town square. He paused for a time as the hearse passed him by. Its dark, somber outline contrasting the sky. Stood still as it turned in through Wellington Gate, Down this last dusty byway of sorrow and fate. A pair of dark geldings, black plumes on their heads. Seemed subdued in their manner while carrying the dead. Their hooves beat dull thuds on the cold, hardened sod: Alerting the devil, but more hopefully, God. The box in the hearse lay there stark and austere. Poor souls final journey, last trek anywhere. The small group of mourners now somber and mute Trailed after the hearse in reluctant pursuit. His thoughts then turned back to concerns of the day. The errands in Denby that had brought him this way. His footsteps trudged on toward the town just ahead. On past this bleak place with its fields of the dead. And the day passed by quickly as he made all his rounds, Attending to business before leaving the town. Then an overdue visit to a friend from the past, Would leave his mind reeling, in tumult, aghast! For Nell Reed had returned from her home far away. Nell Reed had come back, never more would she stray. The scene he had witnessed at Wellington Gate, The pine box, the mourners, lamented Nell's fate. Then a blow to his middle - sharp twist like a knife. Twice now he'd lost Nellie the love of his life. Nellie, oh Nellie sweet child of his youth. How could he accept this - admit to its truth? She now lay in her coffin - pale, cold, not a sigh. No words would she speak, not one single goodbye. No explanation of the times in their past: Of unanswered questions, he could now never ask. He then found himself back at Wellington Gate. Fall shadows had lengthened and the day had grown late. Dead leaves of November swirled under his step, Invited him follow to where Nellie now slept. The despair that he felt huddled there by her grave, Made him seem as a man now most surely depraved. Harsh pleas for the answers to questions long asked, From someone once cherished, now part of the past. Where had she gone while he fought in that war? Why did she leave, did she love him no more? Upon his return, mind and body all scarred, To face life without her - so sad and so hard? He cried out in frustration, old sorrow and pain, As he knelt by her grave there on Evermore Lane. And the day turned toward evening, but he did not see, Trapped there in his memories with no place to flee. Then he sensed someone else, just behind, but nearby. A young man with Nell's look, most especially her eyes. In his hand was a letter, tinged yellow with time- Nell's neat, tiny script penned on each faded line. "She told me about you and what you once shared, And asked me to find you, to tell you she cared. She wished you to have this," his voice held a plea. "Her last thoughts on this earth were of you and of me." "The letter was written a long time ago, When I was a child, before I came to know. The man I called father, in the days of my youth, Was only her husband; a well hidden truth." "He raised me and fed me and treated me well, But he never did love me and I always could tell. This letter from mother should bring you at last, Answers to questions that have troubled your past." And the son placed the letter in his fathers cold hand, Waited a moment - made a half-hearted stand. But he turned then and left - back through Wellington Gate: To the place he had come from and his own earthly fate. And his father by the morning, lay frozen and dead, On Nellie's cold grave with the message unread. He never did view those last words meant for him, It grew too dark to see as the cold night set in. He succumbed to that cold and to Nellie's mute call. And died where she lay on the last day of fall. And the years passed on by, like the years always will. They now lie there together, both silent: both still. And all who'd remember lie near them as well, No one now survives for this sad tale to tell. Yet the legend goes on of this man and of fate. It's still whispered while passing by - Wellington Gate.