Marina followed the brook upstream, above the little falls, to a pond the family waterfowl seldom visited. It stood in the midst of a water meadow, and the verge was dense with protective reeds. An intensely green scent hung over the pond; not the scent of rotting vegetation, nor the stale smell of scum, just the perfume of a healthy watering hole densely packed with growing things. In fact, the water was pure and clear, thanks to a fine population of little fish and frogs. Herons came here to hunt, and the smaller, shy birds of the reed beds, but never any people—if the folk of the neighboring farm knew about this place, they didn’t think it held fish large enough to bother with, and her own family left her alone here. This was Marina’s summertime retreat by common consent, and had been since she was old enough to come up here alone. It wasn’t as if she could get into any trouble in the water, after all—even in the roughest horseplay, the Undines would never permit her to come to harm in her proper element. She had been able to swim, and be safe in the water, since before she could walk.
She slipped out of her dress and petticoat and underthings and left them folded on a rock concealed among the reeds, where they would remain safe and dry without advertising the fact that there was someone swimming here to anyone who might be passing. This time of year there were always strangers, itinerant harvesters, and gypsies passing through the village. The villagers themselves might not come here, but the strangers, looking for a place to camp, might happen upon it by accident. Not the gypsies, though; the Undines managed to warn them off.
There hadn’t been anyone around the pond today, or the Undine wouldn’t have invited her to swim. They might not understand much about a mortal’s life, but they did understand that strange men lurking about could be a danger to Marina.
She took a moment to tie her hair loosely at the nape of her neck, then slipped into the sun-warmed water wearing nothing more than her own skin.
Immediately she was surrounded by Undines wearing nothing more than theirs, and an exuberant game of tag began. She was at a partial disadvantage, not being able to breathe underwater, but she managed to compensate with her longer reach. There was a great deal of splashing and giggling as they chased one another. The warm water caressed Marina’s skin like the brush of warmed silk; as the Undines slid past her, a tingle of energy passed between them, a little like the tingle in the air before lightning strikes. The pond was surprisingly deep for its small size, and as she dove under to elude a pursuer or to chase her own quarry, she reveled in the shock of encountering a cooler layer of water beneath the sun-warmed surface. Other, lesser Elementals gathered to watch, chattering excitedly among the reeds, applauding when someone made a particularly clever move. A family of otters appeared out of nowhere and joined in the fun, and the game changed from one of tag to one of “catch the otter” by common consent.
The otters took to this new game with all the enthusiasm that they brought to any endeavor, and soon the pond was alive with splashing and shrill laughter. Undines chased otters in every direction; slippery otters slid right through Marina’s fingers, though truth to tell, she didn’t try very hard to hold them. It was more fun watching them twist and turn in the water to avoid capture than it was to try and wrestle a squirming body that just might deliver an accidental nasty kick—with claws!—if you weren’t careful.
Only when Marina was completely out of breath did she retreat to her rocks and watch the Undines continue the game on their own. The smallest of the otters evidently ran out of energy at the same time, and joined her. After she combed out her hair with her fingers and coaxed most of the water out of it, she stroked the otter’s smooth, dense fur and scratched its head as it sighed with content and erected its stiff whiskers in an otter-smile. It rolled over on its back, begging for her to scratch its tummy. She chuckled, and obliged.
But the sun was westering; it was past teatime, and neither the Undines nor the otters seemed prepared to give up their game any time soon. They might be perfectly free to play until dark and afterwards, but she did have things to do. Reluctantly, she donned her clothing again—reluctantly, because after the freedom of being in the water, it seemed heavy and confining—pulled her skirts up above her knees, and waded back to dry land.
She stopped in the orchard long enough to retrieve her basket of apples and her book. With the basket swinging from one hand, she took her time strolling back to the farmhouse.
In the late afternoon sunlight, the gray granite glowed with mellow warmth. When winter came, the stone would look cold and forbidding, but now, with all the doors and windows open, flowers in the window boxes, and roses twining up trellises along the sides, it was a welcoming sight.
Tea was over, but as she’d expected, Aunt Margherita had left her scones, watercress sandwiches, and a little pot of clotted cream in the kitchen under a cheesecloth. There was no tea, but there was hot water on the stove, and she quickly made her own late repast. She arranged the apples she’d brought in a pottery bowl on the kitchen table, and retreated to her room to fetch her work. After her swim, she was feeling languid, and her window seat, surrounded by ivy with a fine view of the hills and the sunset, seemed very inviting. Uncle Sebastian would be fiddling with his Saint Joan, working on the background, probably; Uncle Thomas was carving an occasional table, a swoopy thing all organic curves. And Aunt Margherita was probably either at her embroidery or her tapestry loom.
Her uncles expected a great deal of her in her studies; they saw no reason why she couldn’t have as fine an education as any young man who could afford the sort of tutor that Sebastian’s father had been. Granted, neither Sebastian nor Thomas had attended university, but if they’d had the means or had truly wanted to they could have. So, for that matter, could Aunt Margherita. Perhaps women could not aspire to a university degree, but they were determined that should she choose to attend the single women’s college at Oxford regardless of that edict, she would be as well or better prepared than any young man who presented himself to any of the colleges there. She was not particularly enamored of the idea of closing herself up in some stifling building (however hallowed) for several years with a gaggle of young women she didn’t even know, but she did enjoy the lessons. At the moment she was engaged in puzzling her way through Chaucer in the original Middle English, the Canterbury Tales having caught Uncle Sebastian’s fancy. She had a shrewd notion that she knew what the subjects of his next set of paintings was likely to be.
Well, at least it will be winter by the time he gets to them. If she was going to have to wear the heavy medieval robes that Uncle Sebastian had squirreled away, at least it would be while it was cold enough that the weight of the woolens and velvets would be welcome rather than stifling.
At the moment, it was the Wife of Bath’s Tale that was the subject of her study, and she had the feeling that she would get a better explanation of some of it from Aunt Margherita than from the uncle that had assigned it to her. Uncle Sebastian was not quite as broad-minded as he thought he was.
Or perhaps he just wasn’t as broad-minded with regard to his “niece” as he would have been around a young woman who wasn’t under his guardianship. With Marina, he tended to break out in odd spots of ultra-middle-class stuffiness from time to time.
She curled herself up in the window seat, a cushion at her back, with her Chaucer in one hand, a copybook on her knee, and a pencil at the ready. If one absolutely had to study on such a lovely late afternoon, this was certainly the only way to do so.