An Evening Fragrance

She walked down the lane in the late evening. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon but there was still the dusk light to let her see where she was going. It had been a warm day but this evening it had cooled off nicely – which was why she had decided to go for her walk.

She loved this lane. It rambled along up small hills and down, curving around strands of trees and a small pond or two. It even had a bridge over a creek. Best of all was that it was secluded. There were no neighbors along its length and it was out of the way enough that it seldom saw use. So she felt quite at ease to walk it alone, even in the evening, if she had a mind to.

Nature in the coolness of evening after a hot day has a special scent to it. Alive, she thought. A scent of life and living things that always gave her pleasure.

Tonight she was a bit more than halfway down the lane when she caught a whiff of something different. Just a faint scent. She stopped. She sniffed the air. Yes, there it was. Beautiful, tantalizing, but she couldn’t quite place it.

She moved along and the scent came stronger and now she began looking for its source. She passed what was once an old gateway and noticed the scent diminishing.

She turned back, and decided to check out what lay beyond the gateway. She followed what seemed to be a driveway, overgrown with grass and wildness, bordered with beautiful old maples and weeping willows, until it turned. And there it stood, an amazing old Victorian home, turret and all, greyed and forgotten. For a moment or two she forgot why she had come in the first place, but then the scent, rich and full now, reminded her. Even in the fading light she could see the flowers, tucked all through the grass and the overgrown yard.

“Night-scented stocks,” she said, “I should have known.” Not a very fancy name for a flower with such an elegant and rich perfume, she thought, but they sure do bring back the memories.

The light was fading now, so she drank in the scent and took in the silhouette of the old building for another minute or two, then reluctantly turned and made her way back to the lane and home, recalling with pleasure the childhood memories the evening’s perfume had resurrected.

© 2000, Evelyn Grace Marinoski