As I slip my bare feet into the shallow waters of Halecatch Lake, I breathe out a sigh of relief. The waves that lap at my ankles pick up the hem of my dress, muddied from where I had been kneeling at the shore only a few minutes before. I had come down to the lake to escape the busyness of Bree-Town, but also because my painting smock was in a desperate need for a wash and Marsie had refused to do it with the rest of the laundry anymore. I noticed, when I had picked myself up from washing out the smock, that I had been kneeling in fresh mud from the recent rains without even noticing.
“You’re so thoughtless. You get off in your own little world sometimes.” I could almost hear Marsie sigh. I think otherwise! I was simply so focused on cleaning off the paints that I did not notice the mud--that is not thoughtlessness, but rather a simple interest in a different task. With a sigh, I turn to see the apron hanging from a branch on a nearby tree, the one whose shade I had kneeled beneath while working. Though the summer would be coming to an end soon--and thankfully that drought had ended sooner--the sun is still hot and blazing in the sky, and I am of no mind to get my neck sticky with sweat in the mid-morning.
With a grin, I realize that if I am going to be here all alone, then this little world would be mine indeed. With a gleeful laugh I twirl around in the water, the skirt of my dress spinning with me and slowly growing sodden as I venture out further into the lake. The coolness against my skin as the fabric sticks me brings to mind a fond memory; a picnic on the other side of the Bree-fields, at the Everclear Lakes. A copse of trees, a bottle of cherry bounce. It feels like a lifetime ago, but a cycle of seasons isn’t a lifetime.
I haven’t seen Piper around too often since the picnic, though she did leave that day in the middle of our lunch with her friend, Taraborn, whom I think in hindsight was her beau. That is likely the reason she slipped off with him after taking a swim in the lake. I had refused to swim that day, not wishing to strip down in front of her and Taraborn, nor did I wish to undress myself in front of Mister Arthur Hazelwood, who nonetheless seemed content to remain on the shore with me while the other two ran off together.
Fenley is still off on that adventure with the lass he fancies, Liffey, as far as I can recall--I’ve heard that Piper is handling The Peaceful Peach fine in his absence, though I do worry about how the inn had fared during the harsh summer drought. That drought had sent everyone either apart or together; I rarely left the family home to tend to my father and keep as cool as I could; even my sweet niece Jennefer had to spend her birthday inside out of the sweltering heat lest the young girl faint.
Some good came of it, however, I remind myself as I trail further into the waters, letting the waves reach up past the crest of my thighs and pool around my waist. The rain had brought an end to the long drought at last, though the heat and parching of my lips had only made my endeavors more fruitful. At long last, the mural on Jennefer’s wall was painted to completion! I had to be frugal with my colors as it was hard to come by ingredients for painting over the past few months--it was seen as a frivolous expenditure by many, and so merchants had little to sell, and it was too hot to go out and collect my own resources. Despite the hardship, it was finished! The orange and golden hue of the sunset cresting beneath the tops of the dark Chetwood trees that tower; the homestead swathed in rays of golden light and shadow both, and the small herd of horses that Jennefer loved to count and name as she fell asleep grazing near the foot of her bed. Once the paint had dried, she had her father rearrange the furniture of her bedroom so she could be nearer to it. Although Ogden had grumbled the whole time, I could tell that my brother was pleased.
Now, though, I feel my lips twitch downwards in displeasure; I stop moving, not wishing to let the waves rise any higher onto my chest. One venture of mine vexes me still, as much or if not more so than the man of whom it highlights as the subject. The portrait of Arthur Hazelwood in all its unfinished mockery still sits unfinished in my makeshift workspace (my room, where I had not pushed all the rest of my furniture up against one wall to leave myself space to sketch and paint). Though I had called on him at his townhouse twice more since my first time doing so in order to get a better idea of the posing and how his form should be painted, I have only found myself frustrated in attempting to do so!
Even now, in my mind, I can see the room that awaits me when I return! No cleanliness is there, only easels bearing canvasses half-painted and sketches half-complete tacked up upon the wall; papers strewn all about the floor for reference and memory, and even a knife I had asked Ogden to craft as a model sitting haphazardly on my dresser, tempting to plunge down and embed itself firmly in a stack of discarded attempts to complete the commissioned portrait.
It is the hat! I tell myself one day as I throw myself then into mastering how it should cast shadow across one’s face and the feather plumage that darts out from it, only to find at the end of my sketching--or on a few occasions, after I have been painting for hours--that it is not the hat that infuriates me now! It is the angle of the pose, or the tilt of the canvas that has gone unnoticed, or some other small imperfect detail that sends me spiraling until I toss it entirely and start over.
The drought has brought one other good thing with it, and that is the fact that I have not seen Arthur Hazelwood often this summer, as I believe he is away at his family estate hiding out just as the rest of us have been! That is all well and good with me, for I am quite certain that he would simply cancel his request if he knew that it is nowhere near completion, even now! As tempted as I am to call upon him once more to get another round of reference sketches, I fear that I will always fail to deliver when I try to recreate it for my own. Marsie thinks that I should simply paint in his presence to have a living reference (she heard that the wealthy folk of southern lands like Gondor have their artists do such a thing) but I simply think it would only worsen my fixation on detail!
I drift out of the lake now, leaving my myriad of thoughts behind in the waters, cleansing them from me like I had left the paint and the mud of my clothes behind. A fresh season, a fresh start. There is time enough for worry later.
