By the middle of the morning all these family members were out on the wide, flat lawn before the house with neighbors and friends and villagers. It was crowded and buzzing with the noise of jovial greetings. The weather was, of course—had anyone really doubted it?—perfect for the occasion. The sky was clear, the air warm, the breeze slight. The only visible evidence of the breeze, in fact, was the fluttering of the brightly colored ribbons on the maypole on the west side of the lawn.
The Wares of Ravenswood itself were all outside too, greeting their guests with warm smiles and hearty handshakes and a few personal words for everyone, even those who labored on their farms every day except Saturday afternoons and Sundays and holidays—of which today was one. Those servants who were required to work were to be rewarded with a whole day off, for which they would be paid, on a day of their choice in August.
At last the vicar, in response to a gesture and a smile from thecountess, took his place on the cobbled terrace at the foot of the wide marble steps, flanked by the Earl and Countess of Stratton and Viscount Mountford on one side and their other children on the other. Mr. Roberts, the schoolmaster, was helping Sir Ifor Rhys marshal into lines the members of the youth choir—which would include Owen and Stephanie after the prayer and opening remarks were finished—ready to take their places on the terrace to sing the songs they had practiced with great diligence for the past couple of months. The maypole dancers—the ladies in pastel-shaded dresses with floral wreaths on their heads, the men dressed in dark breeches and waistcoats with shirts to match their partners’ dresses in color—were standing close to the maypole with the two fiddlers who would play for them.
An expectant hush fell upon the gathered guests as they turned their attention toward the terrace. The vicar raised both arms and invited everyone to bow their heads.
—
Gwyneth stood on the lawn with everyone else, Idris on one side of her, her mother and father on the other. She was feeling unabashedly pretty in her new pink muslin dress. The bright shade had been the right choice, unusual though it was for her. She was not wearing a bonnet. Rather, she had had her maid gather her hair in a knot high on her head, with a cascade of curls and tendrils falling from it. They were all lightly threaded with small artificial flowers and leaves so that she looked, according to her father, like a spring garden.
She was smiling as she bowed her head for the opening prayer. She had been smiling all morning. And feeling glad about the pink dress and the fact that she looked like spring. For she had been fighting a bit of depression during the past week. It was quiteillogical, but emotions did not always obey the rules of logic. They were not nearly as tidy as that.
Something had happened. It had all started a little over a week ago at the party Lord and Lady Hardington had held for the twenty-first birthday of James, their second son. It had not been a particularly grand affair because it was too close to the Ravenswood fete, Lady Hardington had explained. James himself had added in an aside to some of his younger listeners that the real reason was that he had threatened mutiny if they had insisted upon charades or blindman’s buff or other such silly games. He had threatened to run away from home and never return if they suggested dancing.
There had been a lavish meal for the thirty guests, however, followed by cards in the drawing room and the inevitable impromptu concert before a light supper. Equally inevitably, Gwyneth and Nicholas Ware had been called upon to entertain the company with a vocal duet, for which Gwyneth provided the accompaniment on the pianoforte. They had both laughed as they took their bows afterward, for they had bungled their parts at one point and been forced to pause briefly to reestablish the harmony. Their audience had applauded them anyway, even Gwyneth’s father, who had shaken his head as he smiled.
“They make a handsome couple,” Colonel Wexford had observed. “Their voices are not bad either, especially when they keep in time with each other.”
There had been general laughter.
“You are looking to add some good Welsh blood to your family line one of these days, are you, Stratton?” Lord Hardington had said.
“You need to beware, Miss Rhys,” the colonel had said, putting particular emphasis upon the second syllable.
More laughter.
“You are embarrassing poor Gwyneth, Andrew,” the colonel’s sister had told him, patting his hand. “And Nicholas too, I daresay.”
That had been the end of the teasing, which had been perfectly good-natured. Someone else had taken their place at the pianoforte and the concert had continued. But there had been consequences. Two days later Nicholas had ridden over from Ravenswood to bring a couple of recipes Lady Stratton had promised Gwyneth’s mother. He had sat for a while conversing with both her parents before turning to Gwyneth and inviting her to take the air with him since the rain of the previous day had stopped overnight and the ground had almost dried.
“We are going riding?” she had asked hopefully. The rain had actually lasted on and off for three days, and she was beginning to feel cooped up and in dire need of air and exercise. Her only real outing in that time had been to the birthday party, but that hardly counted as exercise.
“I had a short walk in mind,” he had said, and he was frowning, she had seen when she looked closely at him. It was not an expression one saw often upon Nicholas’s face.
Gwyneth had gone to fetch a shawl, and they had walked along the graveled paths, in the direction of the stile and the meadow beyond it.
“What is wrong?” she had asked him when they were far enough from the house not to be overheard through any open window.
“Wrong? Nothing,” he had said. But he had not turned his head to look at her. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he was still frowning.
She had drawn breath to insist thatsomethingwas the matter, but she had held her peace. If anything was bothering him—andsomethingwas—and he wanted to share it, he would get to it in his own time. Which was exactly what did happen.
“Gwyneth,” he had said after a while, though he had not immediately continued. “Do you consider that we have acourtshipgoing on?”
“No,” she had replied forthrightly. “I would call it a friendship, Nick. Unfortunately it is harder than it used to be when you were ten and I was nine or when you were fifteen and I was fourteen to be simply friends—in other people’s eyes anyway. Are you thinking of those rather tasteless remarks Colonel Wexford and Lord Hardington made at James’s birthday party? Theywereembarrassing. I was very glad when Miss Wexford intervened and put a stop to it.”
“So was I,” he had said. “But it is not the first time such remarks have been made, is it?”
“No,” she had said. He was frowning at the grass ahead of him.
“Look here, Gwyn,” he had said at last, his voice abrupt. “I like you. I mean, I really do. I am very fond of you. But—well, good Lord, I am only nineteen. You are only eighteen. I am not in the market for a bride and probably will not be for at least another ten years. I do not want to be trapped into anything, especially now, when I am about to embark upon a new life and am looking forward to all sorts of adventures. It is an enormous relief to know you feel the same way. Youdofeel as I do, do you not? You are not just saying what you think I want to hear?”
“I am not, Nick,” she had assured him. “I like you exceedingly well. I suppose I even love you. But not inthatway.”
He had looked at her at last, his cheeks a bit flushed. “The thing is, Gwyn,” he had said, “that we should maybe stay away from each other between now and September. When we are in company with other people, anyway. At the Ravenswood fete in particular. If we spend most of the day in each other’s company, as we usually do, and dance a few times with each other at the ball, there are sure to be cousins and aunts and uncles and neighbors galore who willnotice and make something of it and remark on it, and before we know it we will find that we have anunderstandingand you will not be free to look for a husband after I have left and I will be plagued by guilt. Maybe it would just be best to stay away from each other.”
“But will people then believe we have quarreled?” she had asked him. “And make something ofthat?”
