8
" When she was a girl, Eleanor had completely believed the tale. That Zephyr brought her back from Africa with him, a pearl that he'd swallowed, that had remained hidden deep within his jaw when he was shot, skinned, sold, and shipped, during the decades his pelt was put on proud display at the big house and through his subsequent repair to reduced circumstances at the Lake House. It was there, one day, when the tiger's head was tilted just so, that the pearl rolled out of his lifeless mouth and became lost in the long weave of the library carpet. It was trodden on, bypassed, and all but forgotten, until one dark night, while the household slept, it was found by fairies on a mission of theft. They took the pearl deep into the woods, where it was laid on a bed of leaves, studied and pondered and tentatively stroked, before being stolen by a bird, who mistook it for an egg.
High in the treetops, the pearl began to grow and grow and grow, until the bird became frightened that her own eggs would be crushed and she rolled the argent orb back down the side of the tree, where it landed with a soft thud on a bed of leaf fall. There, in the light of the full moon, surrounded by curious fairy folk, the egg began to hatch and a baby emerged. The fairies gathered nectar to feed her and took turns rocking the babe to sleep, but soon no amount of nectar was enough, and even fairy magic could not keep the child content. A meeting was held and it was decided the woods were no place for a human child and she must be returned to the house, laid on the doorstep in a wrap of woven leaves.
As far as Eleanor was concerned, it explained everything: why she felt such an affinity with the woods, why she'd always been able to glimpse the fairies in the meadows where other people saw only grass, why birds had gathered on the ledge outside the nursery window when she was an infant. It also explained the fierce tiger rage that welled up inside her at times, that made her spit and scream and stomp, so that Nanny Bruen hissed and told her she'd come to no good if she didn't learn to control herself. Mr. Llewellyn, on the other hand, said there were worse things in life than a temper, that it only proved one had an opinion. And a pulse, he added, the alternative to which was dire! He said a girl like Eleanor would do well to keep the coals of her impudence warm, for society would seek to cool them soon enough. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
10
" Sunlight was everywhere, glittering gold off the bright green leaves of the garden. A blackcap, concealed within the foliage of a nearby willow, sang a sweet fanfare and a pair of mallards fought over a particularly juicy snail. The orchestra was rehearsing a dance number and music skimmed across the surface of the lake. How lucky they were to get a day like this one! After weeks of agonizing, of their studying the dawn, of consulting Those Who Ought to Know, the sun had risen, burning off any lingering cloud, just as it should on Midsummer's Eve. The evening would be warm, the breeze light, the party as bewitching as ever. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
11
" It was a glorious evening, the sun seeming to hesitate in the process of setting, as if it couldn't bear to end the day. It was teetering on the horizon, throwing ribbons of pink and mauve across the sky like life ropes, and the air was sweet with jasmine. They'd brought the white cane chairs down from the house, and Anthony, having spent the afternoon entertaining the girls, had finally opened the newspaper he'd brought with him, only to fall into a doze behind it.
Edwina, the new puppy, was leaping about at Eleanor's feet, pouncing on a ball the girls had found for her, and Eleanor was rolling it gently along the cooling lawn, laughing fondly as the puppy tripped over her ears to fetch it back. She was teasing the little dog, lifting the ball just out of reach for the pleasure of seeing her balance on her hind legs, cycle her little paws in the air, and then snap at it with her teeth. They were sharp teeth. The puppy had already managed to tear holes in most of Eleanor's stockings. Darling little menace, she had a sixth sense for rooting out the things she shouldn't have, but it was impossible to be cross with her. She only had to look up with those big brown eyes and cock her head just so and Eleanor melted. She'd wanted a dog when she was a girl, but her mother had declared them "filthy beasts" and that was that. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
12
" Ben ducked beneath the arbor and paused by the fishpond when a memory crept upon him like a shadow. This was the spot where Alice had first read to him from her manuscript. He could still hear her voice, as if it had somehow been captured by the leaves around them and was being played back now, just for him, like a gramophone recording.
"I've had a brilliant idea," he heard her say, so young and innocent, so full of joy. "I've been working on it all morning and I don't like to boast, but I'm quite sure it's going to be my best yet."
"Is it?" Ben had said with a smile. He'd been teasing, but Alice had been far too excited to notice. She'd leapt on with telling him about her idea, the plot, the characters, the twist, and the intensity of her focus- her passion- changed her face completely, bringing an animated beauty to her features. He hadn't noticed she was beautiful until she spoke to him of her stories. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with intelligence. And she was 'very' clever. It took a certain kind of clever to figure out a puzzle- to look ahead and see through all the possible scenarios, to be so strategic. Ben didn't have that kind of brain.
In the beginning he'd simply enjoyed her enthusiasm, the indulgence of being told a story while he worked, the chance to bat ideas back and forth, which was so much like play. She made him feel young, he supposed; her youthful preoccupation with her work, with the very moment they were in, was intoxicating. It made his adult worries disappear. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
13
" Eleanor unpacked the picnic basket and spread Mrs. Stevenson's goodies across it. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the four of them ate ham sandwiches and Cox's Orange Pippins and far too much cake, washing it all down with fresh ginger beer. Edwina watched the proceedings imploringly, snaffling up each small tidbit as it came her way.
But really, the heat for October was uncanny! Eleanor undid the small pearl buttons at her wrist, rolling her sleeves back once, and then twice, so they sat in neat pleats. A somnolence had come over her after lunch, and she lay back on the blanket. Closing her eyes, she could hear the girls bickering lazily over the last slice of cake, but her attention drifted, sailing beyond them to pick out the 'plink' of water as gleaming trout leapt in the stream, the thrum of hidden crickets on the rim of the woods, the warm rustling of leaves in the nearby orchard. Each sound was an exaggeration, as if a bewitching spell had been cast over this small patch of land, like something from a fairy tale, one of Mr. Llewellyn's stories from her childhood. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
16
" The sun had lit up the top row of leadlight windows, and the family home, polished to within an inch of its life, was sparkling like a bejeweled old dame dressed for her annual opera outing.
A great swelling wave of affection came suddenly upon Alice. For as long as she could remember, she'd been aware that the house and the gardens of Loeanneth lived and breathed for her in a way they didn't for her sisters. While London was a lure to Deborah, Alice was never happier, never quite as much herself, as she was here; sitting on the edge of the stream, toes dangling in the slow current; lying in bed before the dawn, listening to the busy family of swifts who'd built their nest above her window; winding her way around the lake, notebook always tucked beneath her arm.
She had been seven years old when she realized that one day she would grow up and that grown-ups didn't, in the usual order of things, continue to live in their parents' home. She'd felt a great chasm of existential dread open up inside her then, and had taken to engraving her name whenever and wherever she could- in the hard English oak of the morning-room window frames, in the filmy grouting between the gunroom tiles, on the Strawberry Thief wallpaper in the entrance hall- as if by such small acts she might somehow tie herself to the place in a tangible and enduring way. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
17
" I know, Granddad, the woods are thick and I'm a city slicker, but Ash was with me, and it was just as well we went looking, because when we finally caught up with Ramsay he'd got himself stuck down a hole in an old jetty."
"A jetty? In the woods?"
"Not right in the woods, it was in a clearing, an estate. The jetty was by a lake in the middle of the most incredible overgrown garden. You'd have loved it. There were willows and massive hedges and I think it might once have been rather spectacular. There was a house, too. Abandoned."
"The Edevane place," Louise said quietly. "Loeanneth."
The name when spoken had that magical, whispering quality of so many Cornish words and Sadie couldn't help but remember the odd feeling the insects had given her, as if the house itself was alive. "Loeanneth," she repeated.
"It means 'Lake House. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
18
" Without sight to get in the way of things, the whole world was suddenly alive with sound: the lapping of water as it washed around the posts below her, the splashing and skimming of ducks as they landed on the lake's surface, the wooden planks stretching beneath the sun's glare. As she listened, Sadie became aware of a thick blanketing hum behind it all, like hundreds of tiny motors whirring at once. It was a sound synonymous with summer, difficult to place at first, but then she realized. Insects, a hell of a lot of insects.
Sadie sat up, blinking into the brightness. The world was briefly white before everything righted itself. Lily pads glistened, heart-shaped tiles on the water's surface, flowers reaching for the sky like pretty, grasping hands. The air surrounding them was filled with hundreds of small winged creatures. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
20
" Benjamin Munro was his name. She mouthed the syllables silently, Benjamin James Munro, twenty-six years old, late of London. He had no dependents, was a hard worker, a man not given to baseless talk. He'd been born in Sussex and grown up in the Far East, the son of archaeologists. He liked green tea, the scent of jasmine, and hot days that built towards rain.
He hadn't told her all of that. He wasn't one of those pompous men who bassooned on about himself and his achievements as if a girl were just a pretty-enough face between a pair of willing ears. Instead, she'd listened and observed and gleaned, and, when the opportunity presented, crept inside the storehouse to check the head gardener's employment book. Alice had always fancied herself a sleuth, and sure enough, pinned behind a page of Mr. Harris's careful planting notes, she'd found Benjamin Munro's application. The letter itself had been brief, written in a hand Mother would have deplored, and Alice had scanned the whole, memorizing the bits, thrilling at the way the words gave depth and color to the image she'd created and been keeping for herself, like a flower pressed between pages. Like the flower he'd given her just last month. "Look, Alice"- the stem had been green and fragile in his broad, strong hand- "the first gardenia of the season. "
― Kate Morton , The Lake House
