The Madness Of Love | The Secret History

II

The chronological sorting of memories is an interesting business. Prior to this first weekend in the country, my recollections of that fall are distant and blurry: from here on out, they come into a sharp, delightful focus. I appear as something of a stranger in these early memories: watchful and grudging, oddly silent.
At any rate, this was the weekend that things started to change. The weekend that they let me into their world.

One afternoon we wandered down to the lake, which was shared, discreetly, by several adjoining properties. The lake, surrounded by birches, was bright and very still. Huddled in the rushes was a small, wooden rowboat, painted white on the outside and blue within.
"Can we take it out?" I asked, intrigued. "Of course, but we can't all go, we'll sink."

I had never been in a boat in my life. Henry and Lilith went out with me - Henry at the oars, his sleeves rolled to the elbow and his dark jacket on the seat beside him. He had a habit of trailing off into absorbed, entirely self contained monologues, about whatever he happened to be interested at the time. That day he was talking about Elizabeth and Leicester.
Lilith was completely ignoring him and his monologue. Sleepily, she trailed her hand in the water. Yellow birch leaves blew from the trees and drifted down to rest on the surface.

We went to the other side of the lake and returned, half-blinded by the light on the water. During all that time neither Lilith nor me said a word. She was still ignoring Henry, but I thought I saw her roll her eyes during one of his heated monologues. I wondered for a long time, what happened between her and Henry, and why do they completely block each other out. I decided to ask Francis, because he seemed to be the closest with her.

When we returned, we found Bunny and Charles on the front porch, eating ham sandwiches and playing cards. Bunny and Lilith weren't really close either, at least not as close as they were with the others.
"Have some champagne, quick" Bunny said. "It's going flat."
"Where is it?"
"In the teapot"
"Mr. Hatch would be beside himself if he saw a bottle on the porch" said Charles.
Lilith took a cup and poured some champagne in it. Bunny and Charles were playing Go Fish: it was the only card game that Bunny knew.

Sorry for such a short and uneventful chapter, but the next should be better.
Also don't judge me for any grammatical mistakes, english isn't my first language.