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The home of Colonel Wheaton and Lady Emily was not the weathered country seat that Beatrice had expected. Walking through elaborate iron gates, she was presented with an abruptness of red brick: a tall edifice of a house with its edges and principal features all piped, like cake icing, with elaborate white stonework. Two footmen in buttoned jackets and two maids in crisp caps and starched aprons stood sentinel on a smoothly raked gravel forecourt. The forecourt in turn was edged in symmetrical box beds, each clipped to geometric perfection and carpeted with a bright pattern of bedding plants. Severely pollarded lime trees stood in rows along the perimeters of the property.
“What do you think of the Wheaton country cottage?” asked Hugh.
“It is very grand,” said Beatrice, trying to be noncommittal.
“The Colonel has extensive interests in the French brandy business,” said Agatha. “The house is designed in a thoroughly French style.”
“Heaven forbid that the lines of its beauty be softened and blurred under the pressures of English rain or herbaceous fecundity,” said Daniel.
“There’s no need to be droll, Daniel,” said his aunt. “Lady Emily is allowed her taste.”
But from the way she smiled, Beatrice thought that Agatha Kent was enjoying an unworthy moment of satisfaction that Lady Emily’s money and position did not mean she had superiority of taste.
The Wheatons’ garden could not be anything but a felicitous scene: the emerald of the lawn, the tightly pitched white marquee made festive with strings of pale blue pennants, the hats, like the heads of summer flowers, nodding above the ladies’ linen and cotton dresses. The uniformed servants, a small navy, ferried trays of sandwiches and buckets of ice across a green sea, and the entire scene was sharply outlined by afternoon sun and teasingly ruffled by a light breeze. Beatrice’s heart lifted, and she allowed her jaw to let go its determined clench as she smiled.
Some couples were strolling about the stone-walled perimeter of the lawn, but many of the assembled guests had gathered under the slightly steamy heat of the marquee. It was a human condition, Beatrice had often noticed, to hurry under any roof or protective wall, even when the weather was perfect and no danger threatened.
“There you are. We were about to send a search party,” called Lady Emily, who was waving her sunshade from her spot at the edge of the marquee. “We are all waiting to meet Miss Nash.” With these words, Beatrice felt herself subjected to the bald scrutiny of dozens of faces, all turning in her direction. The buzz of conversation fell a note and then rose in intensity, and she concentrated on trying to keep the fleeting sense of lightness, breathing more slowly, in and out, trying to rise above a small wave of panic that threatened to make her falter. A hand steadied her elbow, and Hugh Grange, frowning, steered her discreetly behind Agatha and Daniel so that they might traverse the swath of grass between terrace and tent in the protective cover of Agatha’s broad back and large, plain sunshade.
“They are not a bad lot,” said Hugh. “I think you’ll like the Headmaster. He always lent me books from his library in the summers. He understands boys very well, and he collects moths.”
“Thank you,” said Beatrice, her throat dry.
“The usual prominent families,” he added. “I’m afraid they can be quite long-winded about the old family history if you give them the slightest opening.”
“Hugh, we should have a bet as to who manages to communicate the most dazzling ancient connections to Miss Nash,” said Daniel, over his shoulder.
“Daniel, do behave,” said Agatha Kent, moving forward and attempting to embrace Lady Emily without disturbing either of their hats. “So lovely of you to invite us, dear Emily.”
“Bettina Fothergill is up to something,” said Lady Emily in her abrupt way. “I don’t know what it is yet, but she’s cooing like a dove.” She glared across the marquee, and Beatrice tried to follow her glance as unobtrusively as possible.
It was not hard to spot the portly figure of the town’s Mayor, who had chosen to wear his chain of office with garden party flannels. Beatrice assumed the thin woman on his arm must be the much-discussed Mrs. Fothergill. She was dressed in a narrow mustard linen suit and was using her free hand to steady an enormous green straw hat covered in red velvet cherries. When she caught sight of Lady Emily and Agatha Kent staring, she let go of the hat momentarily to offer a smile and a wave that was more a wriggle of the fingers.
“Good heavens, she came as a tree,” said Agatha, waving back.
“Oh, I think she was going for the whole orchard,” said Daniel.
“She brought some nephew or nephew of a cousin with her,” said Lady Emily. They all contemplated the young man in a tight striped blazer who was leaning in to listen to the Mayor speak, an action which seemed unnecessary given the prominent size of the young man’s ears. “Some sort of law clerk, I didn’t really pay attention.”
“That is much the best policy,” said Agatha. “Let’s ignore her as long as possible. I really want to introduce Miss Nash to one or two people.”
“Well, here comes our dear Headmaster,” said Lady Emily. “He is in a hurry to make sure you are just as ordered.” A kind-faced man in crumpled beige linen was carving a determined path between the guests.
“Or maybe he’s just after that book with the color plates that you failed to return to him last summer,” said Daniel, digging Hugh in the ribs.
“Good heavens, you’re right,” said Hugh. “I entirely forgot.”
“If you ladies will excuse us,” said Daniel. “I had better take my cousin out of harm’s way and leave you to your introductions.”
“Headmaster, how delightful to see you in holiday dress,” said Agatha. The Headmaster wore a slightly crushed straw fedora and a cravat tucked into his shirt. He looked, thought Beatrice, exactly like a headmaster on a summer tour of Europe’s antiquities. He shifted his shoulders as if feeling the phantom weight of missing academic robes. “May I introduce Miss Nash?”
“Wonderful of Lady Emily to have arranged for us all to meet in such relaxed circumstances, Miss Nash,” he said, shaking Beatrice’s hand. “One is more at ease outside one’s formal setting.”
“I am grateful to you for giving me this opportunity,” said Beatrice. “I hope to justify your faith in me.”
“Have you met our staff?” asked the Headmaster. He waved a hand towards a small group hovering on the edge of the crowd. A young woman with a lace sunshade and a ruffled silk dress of pink and green panels was chatting to a woman of more indeterminate age, who wore a dark, narrow hat and had added a stiff white collar and cuffs to a dark blouse. An older man in a dusty black jacket was holding forth to a hearty man with a large moustache and striped flannels, strained at the shoulders from a muscular build. “Mr. Dobbins, our most senior master, is mathematics,” said the Headmaster, pointing. “Mr. Dimbly is gymnastics and science, Miss Clauvert is French, and Miss Devon is English, history, and sewing.”
“I am eager to meet them and to visit the school,” said Beatrice.
“Well, we must arrange something,” said the Headmaster, but he made no move to lead her over to make introductions, and Beatrice found she was not at all in a hurry to join her ill-at-ease colleagues. “Of course, right now we are in the process of our annual fumigation,” he added.
“What a fine excuse for any circumstance,” said Agatha. “Headmaster, you are quite the wit this afternoon.”
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