The family had always gathered in the ballroom ahead of everyone else, just as they had now. In those days, of course, they had been the hosts. They had greeted all the guests with a handshake and words of welcome even though they had been mingling all daywith those same people. The fete had been all about warm hospitality in those days. His father had thrived on such occasions, and his mother had always exuded the warm charm for which she was known. The rest of them had grinned and been happy.
They had met here on that particular evening, and his father had greeted them with a beaming countenance and effusive praise of each member of his family. His love for them all had brought him close to tears. After that night, Nicholas had looked back bitterly on the hypocrisy. For his father had been expecting the arrival of his mistress before much longer and was planning a private liaison with her outside in the temple folly.
Now Nicholas was not so sure it had been all hypocrisy. His father’s love for his family, including his wife, had always seemed genuine. It was far more likely that his tearful sentimentality that evening had been caused by guilt. He must have realized that he was about to go one step too far, that he had hopelessly mingled his two lives, which he had kept strictly apart during the more than twenty years of his marriage.
It was difficult to forgive him anyway. His infidelities, made so public on that occasion, had wreaked terrible havoc with all their lives. Yet afterward, his father had continued as he always had been, the genial, gregarious family man and friend and neighbor, as though he felt no shame. But was that possible? Mama had been publicly humiliated. His two oldest sons had left home the very next day and ended up in the Peninsula, one of the most dangerous places on earth to be. His third son had left a couple of months later for the same destination and had said not a word of farewell to his father. Pippa, left behind with the younger two, had been pale and listless and withdrawn even before Nicholas left, while Owen and Stephanie were bewildered and desperately unhappy, the security oftheir childhood lives forever snatched away from them. And the bright and busy social life of Ravenswood, in which his father had so reveled, had come to an end.
His father could not have remained oblivious to it all, Nicholas realized. He must have suffered dreadful anguish, seeing what his thoughtless, selfish actions had done to his beloved family, knowing that it was impossible to put things right. For the last few years of his life, he had surely been weighted down by guilt and misery, his surface joviality just a front for what he had felt inside. It might all have contributed to his sudden, early death.
This understanding of how the catastrophe might have affected his father did not render his actions forgivable, of course. But often, even perhaps usually,notforgiving did far more harm than good to the one who refused forgiveness. It was a case of righteousness versus compassion. And whereas compassion often seemed weak, righteousness could make one brittle and bitter and essentially unhappy.
Stephanie came now and linked an arm through his. “I am very glad that Mama—and Gwyneth—have not had to do all the planning for tonight on top of everything else Mama used to do,” she said. “However did she do it, Nick?”
“By scarcely sleeping or even sitting down for weeks on end before the fete,” he said. “And then by appearing relaxed and happy on the day as though all the perfection had just happened.”
“I am so glad she has Matthew now,” she said. “She deserves a happily ever after, does she not?”
It was as close as she had ever come to referring to the past. He wondered how badly she had been affected. He could remember her crying inconsolably when Devlin and Ben left so abruptly, almost in the middle of the night, and then breaking down in tears againand clinging to him whenheleft less than two months later. Poor nine-year-old Steph.
She had adored their father. He had been her idol, and she had been his special pet.
“I am certainly happy that other people are doing all this,” he said, indicating the floral arrangements that had turned the ballroom into an indoor garden and the long tables lining the wall and covering one set of the French windows on the other side, with their crisp white cloths ready to be loaded with refreshments. An inner room was bustling with activity and the sound of voices, most notably that of Jim Berry, landlord of the inn, who had been in charge of all the food today, a gigantic task he had undertaken for years past with great enthusiasm and delicious results. Mrs. Berry did much of the cooking, with the help of volunteers, but he worked just as hard as she. They were a good team.
“And yes, I am happy for Mama,” he said, looking across at her. She was talking with Pippa and Lucas. She exuded happiness, and Matthew Taylor, watching her as she talked, her arm drawn through his, was beaming with pride.
“The ball is always both a happy and a sad occasion, is it not?” Devlin said, strolling up to them. “Happy because it is the culmination of the day’s festivities and sad because the fete is almost over for another year. Ah. I believe people are beginning to arrive.”
They were no longer the official hosts, but the ballroomwaspart of Ravenswood, and they would hover close to the doorway to shake hands with guests as they arrived and make them feel welcome.
Nicholas’s leg had been aching earlier from all the walking and standing he had done today. But he had forgotten it now. He woulddance all evening and suffer any consequences tomorrow. The ball never continued late into the night anyway, astonballs in London tended to do. Many of the folk here had chores to get up for. Cattle and other farm animals would not wait to be fed or milked or exercised just because the farmer had danced the night away. And babies would show no mercy to their mothers when they were hungry in the early morning.
Nicholas shook a number of hands before he saw the person he most wanted to see. She came with her parents and her siblings—except for the very young ones, who would have remained in the nursery, to be joined by other infants from the neighborhood. They would enjoy a party of their own under the supervision of nurses and a few volunteers from the village and be put to bed when they were ready.
Winifred was not dressed formally, as indeed none of the family were, but she looked pretty in her light-colored floral muslin dress with her hair high on her head in a style that made her look youthful and flattered her neck. She wore no jewelry—though even as he thought it, Nicholas noticed the daisy brooch pinned to the bodice of her dress.
Owen was the first to greet the Cunninghams and stand chatting with them for a few moments before turning his attention to other new arrivals. Pippa came to greet them too and kissed Winifred and Sarah on the cheek. Nicholas shook hands with a young couple, tenant farmers from a few miles away, before greeting the Cunninghams himself.
“Thank you for painting such a lovely portrait of my mother,” he said, shaking Joel Cunningham by the hand. “And thankyou, ma’am, for taking on the gargantuan task of bringing all your family here. You have all been a delight.”
He thought anew, looking into her bright, happy face, that she could not be more than a year or two older than he. It was not a comfortable thought under the circumstances.
“I have never seen anything more breathtaking in my life,” Sarah said when Nicholas took her hand and patted the back of it. “All the flowers! And the candles all alight in the chandeliers! Is this what atonballroom during the Season in London looks like?”
He smiled in some amusement. “There is never such a warm, festive atmosphere there as we have here tonight,” he said.
He shook Robbie’s hand and commended him on his archery skills. And he shook Andrew’s hand and winked at him. The boy smiled back and indicated all the flowers, making circular motions from them to his nose as he did so, inhaling and half closing his eyes.What a wonderful scent.
Yes.Nicholas nodded.
Children over eight were allowed to attend the ball until just before the supper hour, when they would join the younger children in the nursery for a light banquet—if there was such a thing—of their own. But the young Cunninghams had already dashed off to join Gareth and Joy and a host of other friends they had made during the day.
Nicholas turned to Winifred. “You are looking delightful,” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. “Would you be willing to postpone our dance to thesecondwaltz of the evening? It is the supper dance, though I promise not to use the time interrogating you over your credentials or discussing with you the dubious merits of refusing to engage in warfare, no matter what the provocation. I hope if you are not ravenously hungry you will step outside with me instead. It is a warm evening and will be perfect for a walk in the moonlight.”
Had he gone too far, too fast? But dash it all, she was leaving with her family on Monday. He might never see her again.
She bit her lower lip.
“I do not believe I will be hungry,” she said.
