It had certainly never occurred to him that he would eventually choose a bride with cool deliberation, as he had with Grace. He had been enormously fortunate to be released from that commitment at the last possible moment. And doubly fortunate to know that she had been equally relieved. She actually looked happy today,something that had seemed to be absent from her demeanor all the time he had known her. He hoped with all his heart that she would find love again, as she had as a very young woman, and trust it and discover the happiness that was surely hers by right.
He was free again to find love. There was no point in dwelling on the wasted years or upon his age. He wasonlythirty-four, and he had everything to give, and everything to expect in return.
The conversation flowed about him, unheeded for the moment.
He had fallen in love with Winifred Cunningham on the island that day of her first ever horseback ride. The most unlikely woman in the world. Yet perhaps she was perfect for him. Had he not longed to find someone who wasrealmore than anything else—more than outwardly beautiful and accomplished and of impeccable lineage?
No one was more real than Winifred. Or more grounded in real life. Or more likable.
At the time, he had ruthlessly squashed his realization that he was in love with her, for neither of them had been free. They both were now. But he must be careful. He did not want to rush into anything he might regret. Or rush her into anythingshemight regret. He was not at all sure how she could fit into his life or how he could fit into hers. She saw all soldiers as killers. And she was not wrong. She did not like London, where he needed to be, at least for the foreseeable future. She loved her rural life in the hills above Bath.
She was twenty-one years old. He was thirty-four. It was a significant age gap. He had always thought five years either side of his age was the limit he was prepared to go. Grace was just four years younger than he. Winifred was thirteen.
“The races are all done,” James said, getting to his feet. “I am headed for the maypole.”
A crowd was already forming there. The maypole dancing by Sid Johnson’s troupe had become increasingly popular over the years. There were several reasons. The dancing was a musical and visual spectacle, the men dancers all clad in shirts of varying pastel shades, their female partners in similarly shaded dresses. The ribbons were brightly multicolored. The fiddles were toe-tappingly good. But perhaps most popular of all were the brief lessons the troupe gave afterward to whoever was brave enough to step forward before a large audience, possibly to make spectacles of themselves. Young and old always took up the challenge, each to be partnered with one of the regular dancers while Sid called out clear instructions and the steps and patterns of the dance were kept simple.
Robert came running as the men approached and demanded a perch on Uncle Nick’s shoulders again so he would be able to see. Most of the children wormed their way to the front. Stephanie was there with Winifred, their arms linked. Owen went to stand behind them and set a hand on a shoulder of each. Bertrand came along with Uncle George and one of Matthew Taylor’s great-nephews.
The dancers were ready, each with a brightly colored ribbon in hand. A near hush fell on the crowd. The fiddles struck a decisive chord and launched into a lively tune. The dancers were off.
Nicholas marveled at their skill as they moved about the maypole, half going one way, half the other, performing intricate dance steps as they stretched over and ducked under one another’s ribbons until to the spectator it seemed they must be impossibly tangled. But they never were. The dancers moved onward, and the ribbons untangled themselves as one set of the overall pattern was completed and a new one began. They were light-footed and graceful, smiling at one another and never making a false move. Just one would have hopelessly snarled the whole thing and ruined the dance.
There was a roar of enthusiastic applause when the first dance finished. Robert tightened his grip on Nicholas’s chin and drummed his heels against Nicholas’s chest as his uncle set two fingers to his lips and whistled his appreciation.
The troupe danced again, to a faster tune this time while their audience watched with awe and bated breath. The crowd was not willing to let them go when they were finished, and they obliged with two brief encores.
When the applause died away at last, Sid held up both arms for quiet. The usual lessons would be conducted a little differently this year, he announced, in order to accommodate all those who were courageous enough to try. They would be arranged in age groups, the over-fifties first. Who wanted to try?
Amid enthusiastic applause, Nicholas’s mother stepped forward with Matthew Taylor and his brother. Aunt Kitty and Uncle George followed them and—great surprise—Mrs. Haviland. The other volunteers were villagers and people from the surrounding farming areas. Miss Jane Miller was among them.
Nicholas set Robert down so the child could wriggle his way forward to watch with other children.
The music was slow, the instructions simple and clear. The group did remarkably well, aided by the regular dancers who partnered each of them, having to stop only twice during the minute or so they danced so the ribbons could be unsnarled and everyone could return to their appointed stations.
The forty- to forty-nine-year-olds came next to undiminished enthusiasm from the crowd. Then it was the turn of the thirty- to thirty-nine-year-olds. Volunteers stepped forward to a great deal of merriment and teasing from the younger group. Nicholas was among them, as well as Pippa and Lucas and Mrs. Cunningham.They did not do terribly well, thanks to the presence among them of one woman who persisted in dancing to her own tune and had no concept whatsoever of team play, and of one man who pranced about with frowning concentration and no sense of rhythm or timing. One wondered why he had volunteered.
Nicholas laughed as family and friends jeered good-naturedly at him. He caught Winifred’s eye and winked. She laughed back and he knew he had not mistaken his feelings out on the island.
It was her turn then with others who were in their twenties. She and Stephanie dashed forward to volunteer. Owen and Bertrand and—yes, indeed—Grace followed them. Grace had shed her bonnet and her gloves and parasol somewhere along the way. They were far more successful as a group. Winifred, Nicholas saw as he watched, danced with sheer joy. Her younger brothers and sisters shrieked loudly in appreciation.
“She ismy sister,” Nicholas heard young Alice tell her companions.
“Well done, you sweet young twenty-or-so,” Nicholas said to her as she left the maypole and brushed past him, flushed and happy.
She laughed at him as she walked on by. “You did not do too badly yourself, you old man,” she said cheekily.
“Ha! You walked right into that one, Nick,” Owen said from behind him with a roar of laughter.
Nicholas laughed too. And he noticed his little silver daisy pinned to the bodice of her dress as the sunlight caught it.
“I wonder if Mr. Johnson and his dancers would be willing to conduct a workshop at our home in Bath,” he heard her say as some of the ten- to nineteen-year-olds pushed forward, including Robbie, surely to the surprise of all who knew him. A few of the neighborhood girls were eyeing him with interest, Nicholas noticed. “It would be enormously popular, I am sure.”
Nicholas smiled. She was forever thinking of her home and her beloved arts center there and of ideas to expand their programs so they would not stagnate.
“I would wager Sid would be flattered by the offer,” Owen said. “Whether he and his group would be able to accept is another matter, though. They are all working folk.”
“Well, of course they are,” she said. “But if we all gave up on certain dreams just because they are difficult to accomplish or because we do not have time for them, then dreams would be pointless, would they not? And life would be insufferably dull.”
