“Gwennan to be married!Why, she is only just out of the schoolroom.”

“She did not need a season,” I said, looking maliciously at my cousins. “And she is marrying Harry Leveret, who is, I believe, almost a millionaire.”

“There is no background,” declared my aunt triumphantly, but she grudgingly added: “although the fortune is considerable. And married … right out of the schoolroom.”

“Quite an achievement,” I murmured, smiling at my cousins, “with which we could not hope to compete.”

“How old is she?”

“She must be two years younger than you, Cousin Sylvia.”

Sylvia flushed. “I suppose they were friends from childhood,” she muttered.

They thought me malicious. My cousins would tell each other later that, as I knew I should have difficulty in finding a husband myself, I hoped they would not find it easy either. “When you return I shall take charge,” said my aunt. “Lady Masterton, who is bringing her girl out, has given me a list of very charming young men whom she is inviting to her parties, so we shall not be short of them.”

I felt heartily sick at the prospect, and I wondered if it would be possible for me to evade it. I did not want to be paraded like some heifer. “She limps a little but there’s a fortune there … a small one now, but if her stepmother dies, a big one. Anyone ready to take a chance?”

“You will have to develop a little charm, my dear Harriet,” my aunt was saying. “You cannot hope to achieve anything without charm.”

“I am not overanxious about my state, for all I should be expected to achieve is a husband, with which I may well be fitted to do without. Have you forgotten, Aunt, that my father has left me well provided for?”

There was a deep silence, and then my aunt said firmly: “I am afraid, Harriet, that you have developed some very mercenary ideas. And let me tell you—your habit of expressing them in that most unsuitable way is not going to…”

“Buy me a husband?” I added.

“Really, Harriet. I wonder why I give myself the thankless task of bringing you out with my girls. It is a duty I anticipate with considerable misgivings.”

When tea was over, Aunt Clarissa told my cousins to take me to their schoolroom and show me some of the dresses they would wear for their coming out.

Young Clarissa joined us. She was very like her sisters, pretty in a superficial way, and empty-beaded, which was what one would expect of girls whose upbringing had been supervised by Aunt Clarissa. They were trained to believe that the ultimate goal was the successful marriage. I wondered, as I listened to their chatter, how they would fare even if they achieved that goal. It would be impossible to make them understand now that what happened in the years after the ceremony was more important than what took place during the few months before.

I was a stranger among them, a cuckoo in the nest. They were afraid of my tongue but not of my face and figure. There they had the advantage, and they were determined to exploit it I was glad when it was time to leave, and riding home in the carriage I could express my irritation to Fanny.

“I wish I need never go there again. My aunt is proposing to do her utmost to find a husband for me! She is going to parade me at her wretched balls, which I shall hate in any case. It will be almost like having a placard round my neck, ‘Excellent bargain. Slightly damaged but considerable compensations. Please apply Mrs. Clarissa Carew, Aunt to the object, for details.’”

“Oh, Miss Harriet, you are a one. I don’t know how you think of such things. I don’t think you’re the sort to be married against your will, anyway. Not if I know you.”

“You’re right, Fanny. But how I hate this marketing!”

I was thankful that before this unwelcome season began I should be at Menfreya.

4

When Fanny and I arrived at Liskeard I was surprised to find A’Lee waiting for me. I had known that I was to be met, but I was expecting the Menfreya carriage.

“Miss Gwennan’s orders,” said A’Lee, greeting me as though I had never been away.

“But isn’t this the Leverets’ carriage?”

“She be almost a Leveret, Miss Harriet. She be giving her orders already.”

His lower jaw shook with suppressed laughter; I was certain that Gwennan was giving the neighborhood something to talk about.

On the way to Menfreya he told me that Gwennan herself had planned to meet me but had gone into Plymouth to see about some arrangements for the wedding.

“With most young ladies it’s their mammas that makes the arrangements. Not so with Miss Gwennan. Lady Menfrey learned to do as she was told long ago, I reckon.”

“And you’re looking forward to the day when she’s mistress of Chough Towers, I can see,” I said.

“There’ll be plenty and enough going on then, I reckon, Miss Harriet.”

“It’s good to be back,” I told him. “I feel as though I haven’t been away. Yet it’s quite a long time, A’Lee.”

“Aye, you’m right there. Quite a little maid you were when we last see ‘ee. Now you’m a young woman. It’ll be your turn next, I reckon.”

” ‘Well, nobody’s asked me, sir, she said,’ so far.”

His jaw wagged. “You were always a caution of a maid, you were, Miss Harriet. I reckon the one that has the sense to ask ‘ee will be doing well for himself.”

“Let’s hope that I have the sense to accept him when he does. It’s just struck me that this is a subject which occurs rather frequently in my life. Is it usual, or is it because I have reached that tiresome stage which is known as marriageable?”

“Oh, you be a regular caution, Miss Harriet”

‘Tell me, are there any changes here?”

“Doctor died some six months back.”

“Dr. Trelarken?”

“Yes. He took in a partner, Dr. Syms. He be there atone now.”

“And Miss Trelarken?”

“Oh, Miss Jessie, her went away … to London, I think. Her was staying with an aunt of hers up there, and there was talk of her being a governess or companion. There wasn’t no money, you know, and her’d have to earn her living like, poor young lady.”

“I should think she would be … capable.”

“Oh yes, very capable. Twouldn’t surprise me if her didn’t marry before long. She were a lovely-looking maiden.”

“Very beautiful.”

“Oh, yes. I always said to Mrs. A’Lee that it done you good to look at her. There was a time when we used to think…”

“Yes, what did you think?”

“Well, Mr. Bevil, he were sweet on her. Mind you, he’s been fond of a good many maidens in his time, I’d say; but with Jessie Trelarken it did look … Oh, well, seems it came to naught. He be a big politician now, as you do know. Got in with a big majority, I can tell ‘ee. People here is close, you do know. They like to stick to their own. Reckon they sees it as right and proper to be represented by a Menfrey again.”

“Oh yes, my father was a bit of an outsider, wasn’t he?”

“Well, ‘tis like this here. He didn’t never belong, did he? Now you, Miss, you have an air of belonging. I reckon it was because you come down here when you was a little 'un. And us don’t forget that you run away from London to come to we.”

“Oh … that was long ago.”

“Us don’t forget. It makes us think that you could belong with us more than most foreigners. You was a little 'un when you come here, and us do know that this is where you like best to be. Twas always so.”

“You’re right. I do feel happy here.” Then, Miss Harriet, it’s where you belong to be.”

“Look,” I cried, “I can see Menfreya Manor.”

“Aye, well be there in a little while now.”

“It’s always exciting to get the first glimpse after I’ve been away.”

“I can see you’ve a love for the old place. They say Mr. Harry have promised to do all sorts of things for the house after the marriage, and you can bet your dear life Miss Gwennan will keep him up to that.”

“You mean repairs?”

A’Lee pointed with his whip. “Place like that do need constant repairs, Miss Harriet. Why, what it do rightly need is men working on it all the time, for being big like that … and having stood up these many hundred years to our gales and our seas, well, stands to reason, it wants building up like.”

“And Harry Leveret is going to help. I’m so glad.”

“That’s why they’m so pleased with the marriage. I reckon they wouldn’t be so content to welcome in Mr. Harry but for his money. If you was to ask me, I reckon the lucky one in this little old wedding is Miss Gwennan. Menfrey! Why be so proud just because you can trace your ancestry back a few hundred years? Reckon we’ve all got ancestors, eh?”

“I reckon so,” I said.

“Well, if all the tales I’ve heard of Menfrey doings be true, ‘twouldn’t be all that to be proud about.”

“You’re right,” I answered. “Still, if the Leverets are pleased and the Menfreys too, that’s a fortunate state of affairs. Oh … look … there’s the island.”

“My word, yes, I’d been forgetting. It do belong to you now.”

“Not exactly to me. My father married and I have a stepmother.”

“Oh, to her then?”

“Not exactly to her either. I’m not at all sure. In any case, it’s in my family now.”

“Us don’t like it much … the old duchy passing into the hands of foreigners, but as I said: Ml rightly be the little maid’s, Miss Harriet’s, now, and that don’t seem so bad like.”

That’s kind of you.”

” Tisn’t kind. Tis true.”

“I shall look forward to going over to the island.”

“You don’t be planning to go spending no more nights there, I reckon.”

“I suppose everyone here will remember that forever.”

“”Oh, ‘twas a right good story. It were in the papers. Daughter of the Member and all … and all London looking for her when she were hiding here in the duchy … right here, you might say, in our very midst.”

“It was a silly thing to do. But remember, I was very young.”

“Us didn’t think it were all that silly.”

His jaw began to wag again and I was silent for now we had reached the gates of Menfreya, which faced the road, and were turning in through the archway on which was fixed the ancient clock which was never allowed to stop.

I looked up. It was keeping perfect time as usual, and I remarked on this.

” ‘Course it be in good order,” said A’Lee. “Reckon it mustn’t never be aught else. Tis Thomas Dawney’s task to see it do keep hi good order, and ‘tis what the Dawneys has been fed and clothed and roofed for, this last hundred years —ever since the clock did stop and Sir Redvers Menfrey were thrown from his horse, they Menfreys has made sure as nothing do happen to the clock.”

Through the gateway we went under the clock, past the lodge and those quarters which had been the home of Dawneys for a hundred years, and there were the lawns with the hydrangeas and azaleas all in bloom and the lovely cotoneaster which was covered in scarlet berries all through the winter.

In the great hall, with its pictures on the walls, its vaulted ceiling and its staircase on either side of which were suits of armor worn during the Civil War by the Menfreys of the day, I remembered that night when I was brought hi from the island by Bevil, and how Gwennan had stood on the staircase reproaching me.

Now A’Lee pulled the bellrope, and Pengelly, the Menfreys’ butler, came into the hall and conducted me into the red drawing room, where Lady Menfrey was waiting to receive me.

It was wonderful to be with Gwennan again. She was like a flame; she seemed to have been born with a radiance which was dazzling. I felt alive merely to look at her.

She came in while I was having tea with Lady Menfrey, swooped on me in her exuberant way and carried me to her room. She had changed, of course. She was indeed a woman—voluptuous and beautiful, eager and excited.

This, I thought, is Gwennan in love.

She talked about the plans for the wedding. The whole neighborhood expects a grand affair. It’ll be rather like a medieval pageant, I imagine. My wedding dress is going to be a copy of one worn by my great-great-great-grandmother. I have to keep going for fittings. Such a bore, because I have to take Dinah with me. Chaperone! Unmarried young ladies are not allowed to go into the big city alone. One of the best things about being married is freedom, I do assure you, Harriet You will be in chains still, while I shall be free.”

“Some husbands, I have heard, can be jailers.”

“Not my husband. Do you imagine I’d go from one prison to another?”