We faced the east, and the rising sun turned our faces rosy with its pink light. They sang the song again. I had learned the chanting little tune now and I could sing it with them. I was happy there, in the sunlight, with Richard holding my hand and the young people of Acre around me. But my heart was heavy, thinking of Clary, and when I looked around for Matthew, I saw that he was gone too. I shuddered. Some shadow touched me.

We finished our song with a little ripple of half-embarrassed laughter, and then turned towards the gate to walk back down the footpath to Acre. They had brought Misty for me, and Richard cupped his hands for me and tossed me up into the saddle. She was a carnival horse, with a wreath of hawthorn around her neck. They gave me a flower crown and a peeled wand to carry in my right hand and told me to lead them down the track to Acre. Misty tossed her head – disliking the flowers around her neck – and I had my usual trouble with riding side-saddle in a walking dress. I pulled my skirt down as well as I could. Ted Tyacke gave me a cheeky wink at seeing my ankles, but I could not play the Bath miss at dawn on the top of the downs.

They sang as we came down the track, and together we brought the spring home to Acre and the springtime jokes with us. In the old tradition the young people went around the village with their branches and played little tricks on the villagers. A spinster who loved a boy who did not care for her knew her secret was a public joke when she opened the door and found a stripped wand of willow on the step. A husband who was ruled by his wife was left a branch and a hen’s feather to take in to her when he prepared the breakfast that morning. A father whose discipline of his son seemed too stern to the crowd had an ash twig pinned to his door, and a wife who smiled too easily at the young men of Acre had the dubious compliment of a hawthorn branch with red ribbons left at her gate.

On Clary’s doorstep they put one half of a flowering branch of hawthorn, and the matching half was pinned to Matthew’s door. The most popular couple in Acre was blessed with the crowd’s goodwill. Only I felt uneasy and saw them as funeral flowers, not good-luck charms at all. Only I knew that this very day the betrothal which had started in the bad days of Acre would be ended just when things were coming right.

21

Mama was sitting up in bed, drinking her morning chocolate, when I tapped at her door after changing into my riding habit and brushing the hawthorn petals from my hair.

‘Good morning!’ she said as I came in. ‘The Queen of the May herself! Do you have magical powers this morning, my dear? Could you give me eternal youth and beauty, please?’

I laughed. ‘I think you have it already, Mama,’ I said, sitting on the foot of her bed. ‘You have looked quite unfairly pretty ever since Uncle John came home.’

Mama smiled. ‘That is from being happy,’ she said lightly. ‘But how are you? Are you tired after your dawn chorusing?’

I stretched. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Feeling lazy, but not tired, though it is a longer walk than I thought. I always ride up that hill; I’ve never walked it before.’

‘You could have a rest before breakfast,’ Mama offered. ‘Or perhaps you should go back to bed and I will wake you at noon.’

I got up from the bed and went across to her window-seat. ‘Don’t tempt me,’ I said. ‘If the village is merrymaking, it is my job to check the animals. I shall go up to the downs after breakfast and see the sheep, and then down to the Fenny fields to see that the cows are well.’

Mama nodded and threw back the bed covers and slipped out of bed. ‘You put me to shame,’ she said. ‘I had thought we would all take a holiday!’

The garden gate banged.

‘Who is that?’ she asked, pulling on a wrapper and coming over to the window to stand beside me.


‘Jem is just back from the London stage with letters,’ I said, going towards the door. ‘Maybe there’s something from James!’

I sped down the stairs and nearly collided with Jenny Hodgett taking the letters from Jem at the front door. ‘Any for me?’ ‘I asked.

Jenny turned, smiling. ‘Yes, Miss Julia,’ she said. ‘From your young man, by the looks of it.’

I took it. It had James’s familiar sloping writing on the envelope, but it had been franked for him. It had been posted in England.

‘Jenny!’ I exclaimed. ‘This was posted in England. James is home!’

She beamed back at me and I clutched the letter in both hands. ‘I’ll read it in the stables,’ I said, suddenly wanting to be alone and uninterrupted. ‘I’ll be in for breakfast, tell Mama.’ I slipped out of the front door and down the garden path and through the side gate to the stable yard.

Jem had gone back to his room above the tack room and the stables were deserted. Misty was in her loose box where I had put her, still with her saddle and bridle on, her wreath of blossoms on a hook outside her stable. I opened her door and slipped into her stable, and sat down on an upturned bucket. She nuzzled the top of my head gently and I smelled her oaty breath as she sniffed at me. The letter crackled as I slit the envelope and spread it on my knee, leaning towards the half-door of the stable to catch the light.

It was brief.

Dearest heart,

This letter precedes me by no more than six days. I returned to England this afternoon. I shall be with my papa’s lawyers tomorrow, and as soon as I have travelled to Bristol and reported to my papa, I shall pack my bags and be with you the day after that – May 6. If you can squeeze me into your little house, I shall come to dinner and stay the night. Or, if you cannot, I shall sleep in the flower-bed beneath your window; but if I cannot see you at once, I shall go utterly and totally insane.

The contracts for our marriage are finally done – I shall sign the deeds tomorrow. The settlement my papa is to make on us will build us a house even grander than your own Wideacre Hall. I shall bring some plans with me when I come and we can set to work building at once.

As far as I am concerned, we can be married tomorrow, if that suits you? Or perhaps you require longer to prepare a trousseau? I would not wish you to think me impatient. Next week will be soon enough.

My darling, I kiss your hands, your feet, the ground beneath your feet, and the rocks beneath the ground.

In all seriousness, all the business preparation for the marriage is done, and it remains only for you to name the day when you will make me wholly happy…and half squire of Wideacre!

Make it soon.

Yours for ever,

James

I reached a hand up and stroked Misty’s flank without being aware of the warmth of her smooth coat beneath my fingers. James was coming home at last, and there was no hitch, no difficulty. He might joke about being ready to marry tomorrow, but I knew James. If he told me, even in jest, that he was ready to marry, then he was. And, God knew, I was ready to be his wife.

I got to my feet, thinking to go into the house and tell Mama that James was home and to ask Mrs Gough for the best dinner she could devise for the day he was to arrive – but then I paused. I wanted to be somewhere quiet and alone for a little while longer. The happiness I had in this gentle sunlit morning was too much to mislay amid a hustle of menus and gowns and preparations. I tightened Misty’s girth and led her out of the stable to the mounting-block. I folded the letter and tucked it neatly into the little pocket of my riding jacket. Then I rode Misty out of the stable yard and turned her right up the drive towards Wideacre Hall.

I rode carelessly, on a loose rein, dreaming of how it would be when James came to me, whether I could go and wait for him at the Acre corner, and if he would drive himself or come in a post-chaise, whether he would smile to see me patient at the corner, or whether I would look foolish, like a village girl waiting for her swain. I passed all my dresses in rapid review, thinking which would suit me the best and wondering if I had any new gowns he had not seen in Bath which he might like. And I thought about the menu for his dinner, and what were his favourite cuts of meat and what puddings he cared for. I smiled as I rode, at peace in a little golden reverie of joy, because James was coming home.

The builders had taken the May holiday, so the garden and the new hall were deserted. I rode past the terrace towards the rose garden. I wanted to sit in the sunshine and dream a little more before I went home to tell Mama that we must start to prepare for my wedding day. I hitched Misty to the trellis on the old summer-house and went inside. It was sheltered here, warm. The birds were singing in the woods around the garden, and the summer-house smelled pleasantly of dry leaves and crumbling timber. I sat on the floor, careless of my cream riding habit, and leaned my head back against the wooden wall. With James’s open letter in my hand, I closed my eyes and dozed, still smiling, still dreaming of the day when he would be with me.

It seemed, at first, part of that dream – a kiss, as light as a butterfly’s wing, as soft as a feather on my cheek. I smiled and stirred, not opening my eyes. It seemed part of the dream of James, part of that previous dream in the summer-house when I had been a girl, when I had been Beatrice. I felt as tranced, as dreamy as I had then, and I relaxed, as contented as a sleeping child on the dusty floor of the summer-house, and felt my face covered with kisses. The weight of him came on me gently, warm. As feckless as Beatrice herself, I put my arms around his neck and welcomed his touch. He kissed me on the mouth and I opened my lips in pleasure.