Story Snip from Larksong

elcome to a mini story serial!

Trying something new today, rather than updates or photos, or songs, or anything else...

How about a bit of summer reading?

Here's chapter 1 of Larksong, set in Montreal, July 1914.

I hope you like it!

 

Alice left Montreal on the afternoon of Granny Cunnick's funeral.

Still in her funeral coat and hat, she picked up the carpetbag she'd stored the day before at Windsor Train Station and boarded the afternoon train to Knowlton.

She hadn't wanted to draw attention to her abrupt departure, though in truth her parents were hardly likely to notice; neither had seen much of anything beyond the sickbed in the past few months. Not since Granny had first deigned to inform them of her illness.

By then the TB had advanced past any hope of recovery; Granny had known it, yet Alice's parents insisted on removal from one sanatorium to another, always seeking a new doctor, new nurses, new treatments. Alice had visited her every day at the last sanatorium, a week of listening to every sound from the bed, each gasping inhalation and rattling cough, bracketing the occasional intelligible whisper, always about her birds. Until the dark night last week, after which no further breath had come.

Once in Knowlton, she didn't stop for supplies, but set out straightaway to walk the mile to her grandmother's cottage by Macdonald Lake. Whether her parents approved of Granny's legacy to Alice or not, the aviary needed looking after.

She hefted the carpetbag from one shoulder to another as she rounded the last trail. The cool air of the July dusk was scented with apple blossom from the nearby orchards, and honeysuckle from a vine trailing along the fence of the last house, before the path opened up. She could not keep the sound of Granny's laboured breathing from repeating, over and over again, in her mind.

Far ahead, she caught her first glimpse of the falling daylight sparking off the surface of the lake. The family had always fought over who would spot the water before the others.

Granny Cunnick had been their matriarch, their mainstay – and Alice's refuge.

Thirty years of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and summers at the lakeshore. Alice had even escaped there one Christmastime, when the whirlwind of holiday time in the city – her mother's endless evening parties and her siblings' incessant social events, not to mention her father's steady stream of sporting afternoons – had left her depleted.

Cooling pies on the windowsill, attic explorations, and dockside dives of childhood had given way to garden teas and lakeside picnics as her generation entered adolescence. Granny had always attracted a varied crowd at her cottage, from young villagers to visitors from the Grand Hatley Hotel, artists up from New York, even the odd fisherman or two, each with intriguing stories to tell.

And, always, the birds.

She'd reached the gate, and it was open, and even from the foot of the long drive she could hear the rise and fall of birdsong.

If she could only stay here all summer! Away from her family and her mother's ideas of appropriate stations in life, away from the empty feeling of accomplishing nothing with her years; all the stronger now that she was no longer by Granny's side, away from...

She rounded the last curve and was brought up short by the sight of two young girls seated on the porch steps, complaining vociferously to a girl not much older than themselves, in a maid's uniform, attacking the cobwebs overhead with a rag wrapped round the end of a broom.

Alice stepped quickly behind the wide oak that shaded the gravel sweep before the house, and listened.

"But why do we need a governess, Eleanor?" the younger girl asked.

Eleanor shrugged, busy picking at a loose thread in the hem of her skirt. "Mum said we had to."

"But it's summer! I don't want to learn in summer!"

Eleanor dropped her hem and stood up. "It might not be so bad, Lucy-Goosey. Maybe she'll be fun."

"With a name like Underwood? Like a coffin." Lucy gave an exaggerated shiver, then jumped up, squealing. "Watch where you're waving that thing!" she cried at the maid, flicking madly at her dress. "Dirty great spiders! Why did we even come here?"

The maid brought down the broom with a thwack. "Two more days till that governess shows up! About time, too. If you hooligans've nothing better to do than get underfoot–"

"Come on." Eleanor grabbed her sister's hand. "Let's go look at the lake."

Alice shifted behind the oak to keep herself hidden as the girls skipped down the path.

Her parents had already seen fit to rent out Granny's house.

Far from fulfilling her passing wish to spend the summer here, she couldn't have even one night alone with the birds and her memories.

Unless...

Yanking off her mourning veil, she strode up to the porch and spoke up over the renewed pounding of the broom against the ceiling and its scampering spiders.

"Good afternoon. I am Miss Underwood. Is your mistress home?"

Happy reading!

What books do you have lined up for summertime (or winter, wherever you may be)?

Don't forget, my Summer Fire review contest is ongoing!