Chapter Nineteen
As she dressed for the ball, Winifred tried to decide what had been her favorite part of the day so far. It was almost impossible. Every part had been her favorite.
A main contender, though, must be the moment when they had learned that Andrew had won the carving contest with his stone sheep and lamb.
Mama had squealed as the card marked First Place had been set beside it and she jumped up and down like a girl.
Papa, unable to hold back his tears, had hugged Andrew tightly while Winifred explained to her brother in sign language what had happened.
Robbie, quite forgetting to look sullen, had smiled broadly as he thumped Andrew on the back, and the other children joined Mama in jumping up and down, cheering.
Susan and Emma hugged Andrew’s legs, almost tipping him over.
He was laughing in his ungainly fashion.
Oh, yes, that had definitely been a highlight of the day. Perhaps the highlight. Winifred could feel tears well in her eyes just at the thought of that scene and Andrew’s excitement as Papa led him forward a short while later to receive his winner’s red ribbon from the Earl of Stratton.
Oh, but there had been other highlights too—browsing with the little girls at the stall with all the purses and bags; watching the maypole dancing and then actually participating herself; listening to Stephanie and the choir and the organ in the cool dimness of the church; watching the archery and the log-hewing contests; sitting on the grass during the picnic tea, listening to Mr. and Mrs. Greenfield and Miss Delmont reminisce about days long gone; and…
Oh, and being asked to reserve a waltz for Colonel Ware at the ball tonight.
Apparently, no one ever reserved dances ahead of time for that event.
It was not a formal affair, after all. But Colonel Ware, who must have known that, had reserved the waltz with her anyway.
Winifred dared not ask herself what it meant beyond the fact that she was going to dance at least one waltz tonight—and not with General Haviland this time.
Suddenly, looking herself over in the pier glass in her small dressing room—she was wearing her longtime favorite muslin dress, which wafted about her when she moved and made her feel very feminine—she squeaked and made a dash for the bedchamber and the daisy brooch she had set down on the dressing table for safekeeping before taking off the dress she had worn all day.
She had almost forgotten it. She took it back into the dressing room and pinned it carefully to the bosom of her dress.
It was her only piece of jewelry. The gold Papa had given her for Aunt Anna’s ball would not suit the muslin.
She smoothed her fingertips over the brooch and smiled at her image. Another definite highlight of the day. She knew it was cheap and not even close to being real silver, but to her it was priceless.
She turned her head from side to side. She liked what she had done with her hair.
It was pretty much in its usual style, but she had managed to get the knot high on the back of her head without leaving behind long strands of hair to dangle untidily over her neck.
Her neck somehow looked longer with her hair this way.
And since when had her appearance really mattered to her? She had decided long ago that she was not pretty and there was no point in lamenting the fact. Being neat and tidy was good enough. She only ever looked in a mirror for practical purposes. She very rarely looked at herself.
She looked now and was pleased with what she saw.
She was a young woman, eager to proceed with her life—and all the rest of her life stretched before her, filled to the brim with possibility.
She could do and be whatever she wished.
She was neither pretty nor shapely, but she was not an antidote either.
Tonight there was even color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes.
And her smile, she decided, trying it out, was… nice.
She did not know how much she would dance tonight.
This was not her come-out ball, after all, with Aunt Anna to make sure she had a partner for each set.
But she would not mind if no one else asked except Colonel Ware—though surely someone would.
She was now acquainted with a largish number of people here, and she felt comfortable with them.
She would dance a waltz at least. Oh, she wished she could slow time when it began and waltz forever.
She laughed at the silly thought.
There was a knock on the door of her bedchamber, and she poked her head out of the dressing room to call to whoever it was to enter. Sarah, dressed all in pale pink, looked impossibly pretty. She was fairly bursting with excitement.
“I cannot believe,” she said, “that I am allowed to dance. Is this not the most exciting night ever, Winnie? Oh, you do look nice. I like your hair that way. You look…elegant. And pretty.”
“And you look extremely pretty,” Winifred said. “Shall we go down to the ballroom?”
“Oh yes,” Sarah said. “Do you think any of the boys I met today will ask me to dance?”
“If they can find the courage,” Winifred said, laughing. “But you know how self-conscious and unsure of themselves boys can be, especially with pretty girls.”
Sarah had attracted a following of them during the day, blushing boys who had gazed worshipfully at her and bolder boys who had acted tough and shown off for her. They had tended to cluster in groups to give one another courage.
Ah, courage!
But she did not need to find it, Winifred told herself. She had already been asked for a waltz. Her heart was beating almost painfully in her chest anyway as she left the room with her sister and closed the door behind her.
She wondered if she would remember today as one of the happiest of her life, as she remembered that other day when she was nine years old.
—
Nicholas had been to other summer fetes since the one that had ended so disastrously sixteen years ago. He had always shut his mind to the memories and enjoyed himself anyway. All day this year he had been unable to forget. Tonight, memory pressed on him, and he no longer tried to block it.
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 day with 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 of their 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, not forgiving 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?”