The old school house: a response to yesterdays prompt

The following story is from my friend and fellow blogger CazzyCoop! She wrote this piece in response to my writing prompt post yesterday. Please enjoy, I know I did! Thank you Cazzy for allowing me to share your writing!

THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE

The house is empty now, but it was not always so. This house has quite a history. The building began in 1645 and began its life as a finishing school for young women whose parents had enough money, social standing and influence to send them here. As I move through the house, I cannot help but have memories of times past. Old faces of colleagues and students, the things used to look, feel and smell. 

I remember one colleague quite distinctly, she was a small woman with long brown hair and brown eyes, and she was one of the teachers and taught elocution in the upper house. All the girls liked her and she often invited them to her room for tea and crumpets, and had quite a rapport with them, that is not to say she was a pushover, and when they stepped out of line, she would admonish them and meter out any punishment necessary. I must say she was my favourite staff member. Other colleagues came and went, but she was the one constant over the years, and we became firm friends not just teacher and headmistress. Unfortunately, we lost her in a boating accident on the lake in the school grounds; she slipped getting out of the boat, banged her head and drowned. That was a sad day for all, I decided to send the girls home for a week both as a mark of respect and to give them and myself time to grieve in our own ways.

The school closed down due to lack of interest about fifty years later and as I move about the house, another memory from another time raises itself.

With the school closed, a lord from another part of England took it over as a normal house. He wanted for himself and his wife and a year later, she found she was with child. I watched over them as the pregnancy went on and on Christmas day the next year the child was born. For many years after that, there was laughter and happiness in the house as more children were born they grew into adults who married and had children of their own all of whom called the place home. Eventually they all moved on and the house once again fell quiet.

As I went up the stairs in the house another memory stirred, this time I remember the arrival of priests and nuns who made the house into a refuge for young men and women who had lost their way in life and wished to turn to god for the answers. During this time, I kept to the shadows as showing me would have probably scared them and they would have thought me a devil of some sort. 

As the years went, by I kept a watch on the house and before long I found myself looking upon an empty shell once more.

During the war, it became a hospital for a contingent of wounded soldiers who were fighting for our country. I occasionally showed myself at this time but only to the critically wounded to help them pass more smoothly from this world into the next. 

The house took a bit of damage during the war but still stood firm when years later a widower came to stay. I can still smell the pipe smoke rising to the ceiling and the wood burning in the open fire where he sat in his armchair with his faithful dog by his side. I often visited him and he seemed to cheer up when I was in the room, although the dog did not like me and always seemed to sense when I was present. Though the old man tried his best, the house fell into disrepair and started crumbling around him. He did not stay long in this world after that and I sat on his bed the night he died and helped him pass on.

As I take one last look around the house, I think of a memory only two weeks old. A young man came to visit. He looked quite official and carried a clipboard around with him. As he left, he got a sign from the back of the van he was driving and stood it in the garden. The sign stated that the house was unsafe and was to be demolished in two weeks. Therefore, I was the first to enter this house and will be the last to leave so giving a wave I vanished.

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