There is no possible way to respond to the marvellous comments you've left for me without leaving an essay of synonyms for thank you. When I think of all the hours I spent writing this, wondering if there was any point, wondering if it was any good, it feels like you've just given me Christmas Day!

love, k.

15

Rilla wasn't kidding, she really did have to get the cart back to Jem because he was helping a neighbour shift some of their sheep. Teddy went with Jem because he was eager to be helpful, and even more eager to be out of Rilla's way.

If only Ken had been so circumspect, but then he had no reason not to provide some brawn. Una was a little thing, she probably came up to his shoulder, and looked like she could be brought down with a stiff sea breeze.

Thanks to the army he knew how to work a mangle and how to keep a copper on the boil. Una was better suited to the scrubbing: the basin between her knees, the suds clinging to her blue veined wrists.

She was a Virgin with a capital V, the sort that would never be deflowered. He wondered what came first: her distaste for sex or the realisation that that kind of love was never on her cards. He was thinking about what she would look like if she happened to find herself (miraculously) in a man's bed. It was the sight of those slippery hands rubbing up and down the board that set him off, or perhaps her grave little face. Blank, bobbing, seemingly absorbed, while her heart and her mind were leagues away from the task at hand.

He nearly asked her what or who she was thinking about, it was the first time he could remember wanting to know.

"Why are you staring like that?" said Bruce who was bored now the horse had gone.

Ken made a 'no I'm not' face. He had forgotten children's boundless capacity to embarrass others and so didn't have a ready quip at hand. He wasn't used to being around them, but Una was because someone had to run the Sunday school.

"I believe he wants to laugh at me," Una answered as though Ken was not there." He just thinks it's more polite to hide the laugh in his eyes rather than let it out of his mouth."

Bruce studied Ken for a moment and had to admit that his eyes were becoming increasingly laughy which made a nice change. So many folks were careful and creeping around his sister as if they expected her to burst into tears at any moment. Why, he cried more than Una did.

Ken waited for Bruce to wander off again. Being a boy himself once he remembered that was something all boys do.

Then he said, "I wasn't laughing, Una, or at least I never meant to look as though I was."

Una put the washboard down. "You studied the law, didn't you?"

"And philosophy," said Ken wondering where this was leading, and why his answer nearly had Una laughing too.

"I'm sure you did well in your classes, Ken, talking around the truth like you do. You think I'm funny spending my morning doing your laundry. I'm doing it for Rilla because I gave her my word."

She stood up and flapped out her apron skirt that was sticking to her legs.

"You don't like me very much," said Ken.

"Not very much." Una Meredith was scrupulously honest. "But I shall. If you're going to marry my best chum, then I've got to make the effort."

She said it as though Ken Ford was just another pile of laundry to be done. Another job on the never-ending list of tasks that spinsters use to fill their days. There was a definite pride in her eyes, which Ken now noticed were a dark and cloudy blue. Veiled, opaque, like a well of water that had been left undisturbed.

No one was going to venture within; she would never know what it was to have someone plumb her depths. Which was just as well, Ken thought, because who would be fool enough to dive in?

...

Chapter 16 to follow...