Bart’s companion was clearly not pleased to be interrupted forntroductions, but she was icily gracious. “This is Louisa Ferncliff,” said Alice with determined cheerfulness. “She’s an Honourable,” Alice whispered to Scarlett.

Scarlett smiled, said, “How do you do,” and let it go at that. She had a pretty good idea that the frosty young woman wouldn’t take kindly to being called Louisa right off the bat, and surely you didn’t call people Honourable. Especially when they looked like they hoped John Morland would suggest a little dishonorable kissing behind a bush.

Desmond Grantley held a chair for Scarlett and asked if she would permit him to bring her an assortment of sandwiches and cakes. Scarlett generously said she would. She looked at the circle of what Colum scornfully called “gentry” and thought again that he shouldn’t be so pigheaded. These people were really very nice. She was sure she was going to have a good time.


Alice Harrington took Scarlett up to her bedroom after tea. It was a long way, through rather shabby reception rooms, up a wide staircase with a worn runner and along a broad hall with no rug at all. The room was big, but sparsely furnished, Scarlett thought, and the wallpaper was definitely faded. “Sarah has unpacked for you. She’ll be up to do your bath and help you dress at seven, if that’s all right. Dinner’s at eight.”

Scarlett assured Alice that the arrangements were fine.

“There’s writing material in the desk, and some books on that table, but if you’d rather have something different—”

“Heavens no, Alice. Now don’t let me take up your time, when you have guests and all.” She snatched up a book at random. “I can hardly wait to read this. I’ve been wanting to for ages.”

What she’d really been wanting was escape from Alice’s incessant noisy recital of the virtues of her fat cousin Desmond. No wonder she was nervous about inviting me, Scarlett thought; she must know that Desmond’s nothing to make a girl’s heart beat faster. I guess she found out I’m a rich widow and she wants to help him get his licks in first, before anybody else finds out about me. Too bad, Alice, there’s not a chance, not in a million years.

As soon as Alice was gone, the maid assigned to Scarlett tapped on the door and entered. She curtseyed, smiling eagerly. “Me name is Sarah,” she said. “I’m honored to be dressing The O’Hara. When will the trunks be arriving, then?”

“Trunks? What trunks?” Scarlett asked.

The maid covered her mouth with her hand and moaned through her fingers.

“You’d better sit down,” Scarlett said. “I have an idea I need to ask you a bunch of questions.”

The girl was happy to oblige. Scarlett’s heart grew heavier by the minute as she learned how much she didn’t know.

The worst thing was there’d be no hunt. Hunting was for autumn and winter. The only reason Sir John Morland had arranged one was to show off his horses to his rich American guest.

Almost as bad was the news that ladies dressed for breakfast, changed for lunch, changed for afternoon, changed for dinner, never wore the same thing twice. Scarlett had two daytime frocks, one dinner gown, and her riding habit. There was no point in sending to Ballyhara for any more, either. Mrs. Scanlon, the dressmaker, had gone without sleep to finish the things she had with her. All her clothes made new for the trip to America were hopelessly out of fashion.

“I think I’ll leave first thing in the morning,” said Scarlett.

“Oh, no,” Sarah cried, “you mustn’t do that, The O’Hara. What do you care what the others do? They’re only Anglos.”

Scarlett smiled at the girl. “So it’s us against them, Sarah, is that what you’re telling me? How did you know I was The O’Hara?”

“Everyone in County Meath knows about The O’Hara,” said the girl proudly, “everyone Irish.”

Scarlett smiled. She felt better already. “Now, Sarah,” she said, “tell me all about the Anglos who are here.” Scarlett was sure the servants in the house must know everything about everybody. They always did.

Sarah didn’t disappoint her. When Scarlett went downstairs for dinner, she was armored against any snobbishness she might meet. She knew more about the other guests than their own mothers did.

Even so, she felt like a backwoods Cracker. And she was furious at John Morland. All he’d said was “light frocks in the daytime and something rather naked for dinner at night.” The other women were gowned and jewelled like queens, she thought, and she’d left her pearls and her diamond earbobs at home. Also, she was sure that her gown fairly screamed aloud that a village dressmaker had made it.

She gritted her teeth and made up her mind that she was going to have a good time anyhow. Might as well, I’ll never get invited any place else.

In fact there were many things she enjoyed. In addition to croquet, there was boating on the lake, plus contests shooting at targets with bow and arrows and a game called tennis, both of them quite the latest rage, she was told.

After dinner Saturday everyone rummaged through big boxes of costumes that had been brought to the drawing room. There was buffoonery and uninhibited laughter and a lack of self-consciousness that Scarlett envied. Henry Harrington draped Scarlett in a longtrained silk cloak glittering with tinsel and put a crown of fake jewels on her head. “That makes you tonight’s Titania,” he said. Other men and women draped or clothed themselves from the boxes, shouting out who they were and racing through the big room in a free-for-all game of hiding behind chairs and chasing one another.

“I know it’s all very silly,” John Morland said apologetically through a huge papier-mâché lion’s head. “But it is Midsummer Night, we’re all allowed to go a bit mad.”

“I’m mighty put out with you, Bart,” Scarlett told him. “You’re no help to a lady at all. Why didn’t you tell me I needed dozens of dresses?”

“Oh, Lord, do you? I never notice what ladies have on. I don’t understand why they fuss so.”

By the time everyone tired of the game they were playing, the long, long Irish twilight was done.

“It’s dark,” Alice shouted. “Let’s go look at the fires.”

Scarlett felt a wave of guilt. She should be at Ballyhara. Midsummer Night was almost as important as Saint Brigid’s Day in farming tradition. Bonfires marked the turning point in the year, its shortest night, and gave mystical protection for the cattle and the crops.

When the house party went out onto the dark lawn they could see the glow of a distant fire, hear the sound of an Irish reel. Scarlett knew she should be at Ballyhara. The O’Hara should be at the bonfire ceremony. And there, too, when the sun rose and the cattle were run through the dying coals of the fire. Colum had told her she shouldn’t go to an Anglo house party. Whether she believed in them or not, the ancient traditions were important to the Irish. She’d gotten angry with him. Superstitions couldn’t run her life. But now she suspected she was wrong.

“Why aren’t you at the Ballyhara fire?” asked Bart.

“Why aren’t you at yours?” Scarlett snapped angrily.

“Because I’m not wanted there,” said John Morland. His voice in the darkness sounded very sad. “I did go once. I thought there might be one of those folk wisdom things behind running the cattle through the ashes. Good for the hooves or something. I wanted to try it on the horses.”

“Did it work?”

“I never found out. All the joy went out of the celebration when I arrived, so I left.”

“I should have left here,” Scarlett blurted.

“What an absurd thing to say. You’re the only real person here. An American, too. You’re the exotic bloom in the patch of weeds, Scarlett.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. It made sense, too. People always made much over guests from far away. She felt much better until she heard The Honourable Louisa say, “Aren’t they entertaining? I do adore the Irish when they go all pagan and primitive like this. If only, they weren’t so lazy and stupid, I wouldn’t mind living in Ireland.”

Scarlett vowed silently to apologize to Colum the minute she got back home. She should never have left her own place and her own people.


“And hasn’t any other living soul ever made a mistake, Scarlett darling? You had to learn the way of them for yourself else how would you know? Dry your eyes, now, and ride out to see the fields. The hired lads have started building the haycocks.”

Scarlett kissed her cousin’s cheek. He hadn’t said, “I told you so.”


In the weeks that followed, Scarlett was invited to two more house parties, by people she had met at Alice Harrington’s. She wrote stilted, proper refusals for both. When the haycocks were finished she had the hired lads start working on the ruined lawn behind the house. It could be back in good grass by next summer, and Cat would love to play croquet. That part had been fun.

The wheat was ripe yellow, almost ready to harvest, when a rider brought a note to her and invited himself into the kitchen for a cup of tea “or something more manly” while he waited for her to write a reply for him to take back.

Charlotte Montague would like to call on her if it was convenient.

Who on earth was Charlotte Montague? Scarlett had to rack her brain for nearly ten minutes before she recalled the pleasant, unobtrusive older woman at the Harringtons’. Mrs. Montague, she remembered, had not raced around like a wild Indian on Midsummer Night. She’d sort of disappeared after dinner. Not that it made her any less English.

But what could she want? Scarlett’s curiosity was piqued. The note said “a matter of considerable interest to us both.”