Sometimes over the next week and a half she met him by chance-out on the cliffs, for example, when she went walking there one evening after tucking David into bed. More often, though, it was by design, usually in the afternoon when his work was finished and David was busy with the other children about some activity or other.

He took her to see the village school, with Mr. Jones attending them, and since the children were on holiday, they sat, the three of them, at the narrow wooden desks in the single square classroom and conversed for longer than an hour-or, to be more accurate, Anne and Mr. Butler listened while the schoolmaster spoke eloquently of Wales and Welsh history and education. He taught in both English and Welsh, Anne was interested to discover, since he had pupils with both languages. And his pupils almost invariably became bilingual after a few weeks.

Mr. Butler took her to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Llwyd, since she had spoken wistfully of the lovely harp music she had heard, and Mrs. Llwyd spent half an hour or longer with her, showing her the instrument, demonstrating various tones and chords, and playing for her while Mr. Butler talked with Mr. Llwyd about farming. Mrs. Llwyd insisted that they take tea before they left, and they were joined by the two sons of the house, aged eleven and twelve. Both boys wished that David had come too after Anne had mentioned him. And both boys attended the village school.

Anne went walking with Sydnam Butler along country lanes or sat by the stream in the valley with him or strolled on the beach. Once they went for a long walk to the distant outcropping of land that they both spoke of as the Dragon.

“Some people hereabouts have even told me that it is the original Welsh dragon, petrified by a sea deity,” he told her with a laugh. “It is an attractive legend, but I believe they are merely trying to see how gullible an Englishman can be.”

They took a picnic tea with them on that day and sat eating wafer-thin slices of bread and butter with cheese followed by currant cakes and drinking lukewarm lemonade far out from the mainland, the water on three sides of them sparkling in the sunshine.

“I feel as if I am on a ship,” she said, “sailing…oh, somewhere exotic, somewhere wonderful.”

“A journey to forever,” he said. “An enticing, perfect forever.”

“No, not forever,” she told him. “There is much I would miss if I could not come back. And I could not go without David.”

“You are quite right,” he said. “Not forever, then. Just for a long, long afternoon.”

“Agreed,” she said, stretching out on the grass and gazing up at the blue sky as she had gazed at the stars a week earlier. “A long afternoon. Wake me when it is time to go home.”

But he tickled her nose with a long piece of grass only moments after she had closed her eyes, and they both laughed, their faces not very far apart. She closed her eyes again only so that they would not feel the tension and be compelled to move away from each other in order to cover it up.

There was a certain guilty pleasure to be taken from the tension. And yet she could not bear the thought of his actually touching her-and she still did not know if it was his appearance from which she shrank or her own memories of intimacy. Perhaps it was a little-or a lot-of each.

It did not rain once during those days. There was scarcely even a cloud in the sky.

They talked about anything and everything, it seemed to Anne. He was as comfortable to be with as any of the closest of her friends-except that he was a man.

It felt so good to have a man friend. She no longer even minded being seen with him-and inevitably the Bedwyns and the other guests at the house did see them together. Why should she mind, after all? There was nothing between them that needed to be hidden, and no one-not even Joshua-ever teased her about her friendship with Glandwr’s steward.

Even David saw them together one afternoon. He was playing out on the lawn with the other children when Anne and Mr. Butler were coming from the hill and left the group to come dashing toward them.

“Mama,” he cried, “I cut my finger on tree bark, see? But Lady Aidan took me up to the nursery and cleaned it and bandaged it for me, and it really does not hurt very much at all except that it is harder to catch the ball. How do you do, sir? I went painting again this morning, but I can’t wait to get Mr. Upton to teach me to paint with oils. Oh, there is Jacques calling-I must go.”

And off he went without waiting for any response. Anne looked at Mr. Butler and found him smiling at her.

“When I was a boy,” he said, “I do not believe I had even that much time to spare for adults. I feel honored.”

“He is very happy here,” she told him. “I am afraid he is going to be dreadfully dejected when we return to Bath.”

“Except,” he said, “that he will have the challenge of Mr. Upton to tackle when he gets there.”

It felt good to have a friend to whom she could talk about anything, but from whom she could also withhold certain things about which she did not want to speak without provoking either undue curiosity or resentment. On one occasion, for example, when he had asked about her family again, she talked instead about Frances and how she had furnished a room especially for her or Susanna or Claudia at Barclay Court in Somersetshire and kept it for their visits whenever a school holiday coincided with her being at home. Mr. Butler had made no comment on the change of subject. He too had silent places where she would not tread. She knew that his artistic talent was a painful subject with him, and she did not quiz him on it again.

It came as something of a surprise when one day she worked out dates and realized that the final week of the holiday in Wales had already begun. She had expected her stay here to seem endless, yet now she could not believe it was already almost over. She felt rather sad for David’s sake, but she felt equally sorry for herself. Most of all she felt sad at the imminent end of a friendship that was only just blossoming but was giving her such pleasure.

And it would end. It was hardly likely that they would meet again or that they would exchange letters after she had gone. By this time next month, she thought, they would only half remember each other. By this time next year they would think of each other only fleetingly, if at all.

She thought he had forgotten about his offer to take her to see Ty Gwyn, the house and property he hoped to purchase from the Duke of Bewcastle. But he mentioned it again when there were only three days left before her departure. He had been at Glandwr for dinner, and they were sitting slightly apart from everyone else in the drawing room afterward, the two of them, as they had done on other occasions too. No one had ever remarked upon their partiality for each other’s company or made them feel either unsociable or self-conscious.

But then she supposed that she was unimportant enough that no one particularly noticed her anyway-though everyone had been unfailingly kind and amiable toward her. And Mr. Butler was only the steward. Why should anyone single them out for notice?

“Will you come there the day after tomorrow?” he asked. “Unfortunately, I need to be busy all day tomorrow, but the day after I will be free. I thought we could take a picnic tea over to Ty Gwyn, and at the same time I can see that the work I assigned after my last visit has been done.”

An excursion had been arranged for the day after tomorrow-they were all to go on a lengthy outing to Pembroke Castle. The older children were very excited at the prospect of climbing up onto the battlements and descending to the dungeons. Anne had been looking forward to going too. But she knew that her presence was not strictly necessary. Although all the adults gave special attention on occasion to their own children, all of them also parented all the children equally on most occasions with the result that David had a number of substitute fathers-and a number of substitute mothers too.

And it was not as if she had neglected him. Quite the contrary. Despite her frequent outings with Mr. Butler, she had actually spent far more time with David-or at least with the large group of adults and children that included him-than she ever did during the school term.

She really wanted to see Ty Gwyn. It was the place that Mr. Butler hoped would be his own one day. It was where he would perhaps live out the rest of his life.

She wanted to see it. She wanted to be able to picture him there when she remembered him.

She also wanted to spend one more afternoon with him before leaving. It would be the last one.

It was a rather depressing thought.

“I would love to come,” she said. “I will have a word with David to be sure that he does not mind my not going to Pembroke Castle with him, and I will ask Joshua if he minds watching David for me. But I do not believe either of them will mind.”

“I will have a gig outside the door here at one o’clock, then,” he said, “if I do not hear otherwise from you.”

A gig. It would be the first time they had ventured anywhere they could not reach on foot. She wondered if a groom would drive them. Three of them would be very crowded on the seat of a gig.

But she looked forward very much to the outing even though going would mean giving up seeing the castle. She even found it difficult to get to sleep after she went to bed-like a child with a promised treat, she thought, rather disgusted with herself. Though it was not all excitement that kept her awake.

It would be their last afternoon together.

She hoped the fine weather would hold for one more day.



The fine weather did hold.