Story Snip from Larksong: Chapter 17 and Art from Some of My Stories!

rt post!

First, an installment...

Larksong is set in Montreal, July 1914.

In chapter 1, Alice, after her grandmother's funeral, arrived at the family cottage to take care of her grandmother's aviary, only to find that her parents had already leased the cottage to another family for the summer.

The only way she could have one more summer in her favourite place was to surreptitiously take on the role of governess to the two young girls...

In chapter 2, we met George, laid up at the hospital with a broken leg. Instead of joining his friends on a Grand Tour of Europe, he's being sent off to recuperate at a rented cottage in the country...

In chapter 3, we returned to Alice's point of view, and saw her bonding with George's younger sisters. Then she got a surprise -- George was arriving at the cottage that very day!

In chapter 4, we had a hint that Alice finds George attractive and interesting -- but also unbearably rude.

In chapter 5, they had their first argument.

In chapter 6, they argued once more, but the stakes were higher: war is on the horizon.

In chapter 7, George attempted a rapprochement. The chapter ended with him asking, "Why don't we both go sit in the parlour?"

In chapter 8, Alice had some feelings stirring...

In chapter 9, during their first evening together, they began to suss each other out over a card game.

In chapter 10, we reached the end of the evening, with harsh words from George, but a détente of sorts before they went their separate ways for the night.

In chapter 11, we started the next morning in George's point of view, with his dawning realization of his attraction to Alice.

In chapter 12, we saw that this realization did not lead to greater friendliness.

In chapter 13 (which I mistakenly also labelled as 12!), a new complication arose, in the form of the arrival of George's rather rude brother.

In chapter 13 (hopefully I won't make any further numbering errors!), George was busy with inappropriate (as he thinks) thoughts of Alice.

(I've skipped a scene where Alice takes the girls down to the lake and needs to pretend with a neighbour, Mrs Chase, that she is not a governess, but simply helping out with the girls. Then, while Alice is distracted, trying to spin her web of half-truths and discussing the threat of war on the horizon, Lucy gets up on a rickety boat tied up at the dock and fell off into the water.)

In chapter 14, on returning from the lake, Alice and the girls overheard an argument that ended with this outburst from George to his brother Albert: "I don't need your tales of self-pity. The question is, what are you going to do about it, now that you've f***ed it all up?"

In chapter 15, we witnessed the fallout from the argument, then shared a moment between Alice and George in the garden...

In chapter 16, Alice left George and resumed her governess role, and decided not to join George and Albert that evening in the parlour...

We join them the next morning...

Alice woke in the half light of morning needing the chamber pot and felt for it under the bed, eyes half lidded, still snatching at a dream of Gran. Already the details were beyond recall, yet its memory left behind a pervading sweetness.

Dawn had come and gone outside, though it was early yet. Early morning chill fogged the edges of her window. Far out on the lake an intrepid soul in a drifting rowboat was casting a line out into the water.

George.

There was no mistaking that stubborn outline, quite apart from the leg in its cast, propped on the gunwale at an angle that jarred the idyll of the misty morning lake.

It was the work of a moment to shove the pot aside, exchange night rail for frock and slippers, and––remembering her woollen shawl against the chill––tread softly down the stairs.

Turning the key in noiseless increments, she slipped through a crack of doorway and, once out of doors, flew like Citron the budgie down the lawn and through the tree belt.

Once on the dock she trod softly, lest George catch her at unawares and discover how eager she'd been to join him. She halted at the end, slippers soaked in dew from her mad dash, and watched.

It would not do to disturb the clear, unrippled surface of the lake, nor the surrounding firs that gazed solemnly at their reflections. The sun had not yet broken through the morning haze. All was glassy and rough-edged, like a creature startled in a den it had not meant to be found in. A lone loon called to the east.

George floated in the midst of the scene, ramrod straight, though no one was about to take notice of his posture.

Yet as his boat spun a lazy circle above an unseen current, she glimpsed his set jaw and the thin line of his mouth; he was in pain, and clenching his teeth against it.

As the boat completed its turn, he saw her, and was apparently as reluctant as she'd been to disturb the raw morning, for he gave no sign or greeting.

Or was it that he did not want company, least of all hers?

She should have kept the peaceful sight of him from her window to herself, and not come down to uncover or disturb his tryst with pain.
She turned to go, then heard a low call from across the water. Like and yet not like Citron's jolly tune. One glance over her shoulder was enough to confirm it: George had his hands cupped about his mouth. He sent the call to her again across the glassy lake.

When and how had he learned to imitate Citron without Alice's becoming aware of it?

She raised her own hands and sent a reply, but he was already sculling towards her, and she went to meet him at the end of the dock.
She couldn't ask him to move his leg, yet its angle impeded her from simply hopping into the boat. She couldn't ask him to shift it, for fear of causing him more hurt, yet it would be worse should he capsize.

"You'll have to crawl over the leg," he grunted, and she realised she'd been standing dithering for too long, and drawn attention to his awkward posture after all. "It's gone stiff."

Now there was a good morning for you! Perhaps he'd only invited her to join him as a mere courtesy, and never meant that she should accept.

"You should have pulled up to the other side of the dock," was her own impolite rejoinder. She bent to grab hold of the boat.
"I'd forgotten that you're the doyenne of the lake. Not all of us are privy to its secrets."

"It was merely an observation," she snapped. "Not an order."

She was certainly making a hash of things, unable to keep the waspishness from her voice. She needs must remember that he was in pain, and that a certain allowance ought to be made for his tones of voice. She needn't match belligerence with rudeness.

Damn all this slowness, however. She hiked up her skirts to her knees and took one hop off the dock, over gunwale and leg, landing nimbly in the prow, with only a slight rocking of the boat. Ripples of water fanned out around them, creating minute waves against the shore.

At a snort from George, she glanced up from arranging her skirts to find his eyes narrowed with silent laughter.

"That was perfect," he gasped, and another snort of laughter escaped him. He drew a deeper breath. "I am glad you did not refuse my invitation."

He pulled himself together and took up the oars, nudging off with a push along the dockside.

"Invitation?" she asked. Between her flight down to the lake and her recent gymnastics––not to mention George's intense gaze––she'd warmed considerably. She let her shawl slip from her shoulders.

He did not reply but eyed her speculatively, then looked away, muttering, "You might throw that over the leg, if you've no need for it. It's colder out here than I'd expected."

She'd studiously avoided glancing at his sockless foot, embarrassed to find even his long toes attractive. If he wouldn't take care of himself, she was pleased to be able to do so this once. Though she did not, as he'd suggested throw the shawl, but tucked it about the lower half of the cast, making sure his cold-blue foot was well-wrapped.

George let go the oars, and they drifted towards the centre of the lake, spinning in lazy circles in the same current that had held him before. The sun peeked over the cloud haze and glinted in dew drops in the grasslands on the far shore.

"I meant it as an invitation, actually." His voice had grown unexpectedly soft. "Even before the bird call. I had a feeling that something––someone––on the lake––on your lake––would disturb your sleep."

Alice kept her eyes on the distant trees. This was far more embarrassing even than his naked limbs. How was it that she could think of clever rejoinders to his rudeness but grew tongue-tied now he'd turned polite––and kind?