thank you. Hurry on home.” When he had gone and the lovers were left strolling along the lane, Margaret let her hair fall from its pins. It tumbled around her shoulders, the flowers still in a crown about her head, and she walked with Nigel along the path near the cliffs where they had walked so often as children.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
“Quite,” he said. “I don’t know if it would be possible for me to be more so.” His breath caught in his chest. “You’re so beautiful, Maggie. You’re so very, very beautiful.”
She sighed happily. They stood for a time, watching the afternoon light dip into the golden light of evening on the surface of the silver sea, and then she tucked her hand into his and pulled him along with more urgency towards the edge of a little trail leading down to one of the beautiful secret inlets along the coast.
As they crested the hill, he saw for the first time what she had been pulling him towards: a sparkling scene laid out below them, running to the edge of the sea. There were lanterns planted in the sand, tables spread out with a rustic feast, and a few fiddlers playing in one corner.
He recognised faces as he descended the trail. Some had been at the chapel, Mrs Tarrow and Mrs Cather, for example. But many were from the village, people who would not have fit into the tiny, little church, but who shared their celebration nonetheless.
He turned and looked at Margaret, his eyes shining.
“What is this?”
“The people you love,” she said simply in response.
They were greeted at the base of the slope by Guy Bateson, who had a cup of ale in one hand and a broad smile on his face.
“We were wondering when you’d be done with the tea and sandwiches and ready for a proper dance,” he said, putting an arm firmly around Nigel’s shoulders. “Bring your bride to the middle. We’re ready for a good Scottish jig.”
Nigel caught up Margaret’s hand and hurried her through the crowd amid laughter and applause, stopping at the head of the group of dancers just as the first strains of a rich sea shanty began piping out from the flutes and fiddles. As the music began, Mrs Cather sang along in a bold, clear voice.
“You take a chance on me darling/ and I’ll show you I can be true/ follow me over the hills, love/ and I’ll always follow you.”
The song wound around Nigel, and he found himself drifting away from himself, watching the beautiful scene as though he weren’t even a part of it, only enjoying it in full. He felt the beauty of the music, saw the way Margaret’s hair whipped about her when she spun in circles, and felt the sea air lifting him and carrying him through the familiar steps of the dance.
When the music had drawn to a close, he pulled Margaret from the centre of the crowd and they dropped, laughing and sparkling with joy, onto a boulder near the waves. She reached down and let her hand linger on the sand until the water rushed over it and back out again.
“I wish Poppy could have been here tonight,” she said softly. “She would have liked all this laughter and music.”
“It is late,” Nigel said with a smile. “Perhaps when she’s older.”
Margaret leaned her head against his shoulder. “Yes, but I never want to forget this side of her life. There is beauty here in the unkempt, just as there is in the straitlaced, and no amount of proper living will make up for the mother’s heritage she’s lost.”
They stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s embrace, until the last couples had given their respects and left, laughing, into the night. They walked back together to the Somerville estate where they were to share their first evening together, looking up at the starry night sky.
“It is the greatest luxury to be alone with you,” she said quietly. “Without the fear that we are being improper.”
“It reminds me of when we were children,” Nigel answered her with a laugh. “Then it was the most natural thing in the world that we should run about the countryside without a chaperone. Age brought such annoyances as society and the public view of things.”
“But age also brought me you,” she said sweetly.
“It did indeed.” He looked down at her, reassuring himself that the face beside him was not a fleeting thought as it had always seemed