Life After Life Chapter 4

Four Seasons Fill the Measure of the Year

11 February 1910

• Sylvie wakes up later, and the doctor is gone. A farmer was trampled by a bull, and he had to go check on him.
• Sylvie remembers moving to her home with her husband, Hugh, and how she decided to name it Fox Corner, even though Hugh doesn't like the name very much.
• Back in the present, two children, Maurice and Pamela, come into the room to check out their new sister.
• Sylvie has decided to name her Ursula, which means "little she-bear" (4.49). Aw…

May 1910

• Hugh gets a telegram informing him that his sixteen-year-old sister, Izzie, has had her baby.
• She got knocked up by a married man, so the baby was adopted by a German couple and Izzie was to be sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.
• The baby, Ursula, lies in her carriage and watches a silver hare ornament tied to the hood twirl around in the breeze.

June 1914

• The Todd family heads off to vacation in Cornwall, home of Camelot, although they don't go there; they spend their time on the beach instead.
• Young Ursula and Pamela are playing in the ocean, and it drags them out further…
• And further…
• And little Ursula finds herself unable to stay afloat: "Darkness fell" (4.94).