Love Bade Me Welcome Read Free

much attention to it. At the rear of the house the topiary garden demanded the attention. It was a terraced affair, enclosed by yews clipped into perfectly square shapes.
    Within this wall was a rigid pattern of geometrical forms that must have been laid out with help from compass and rulers. There were perfect circles and pyramids, squares and rectangles, others layered like a wedding cake, with the circles diminishing in size as the tree reached up. In the center of it all, a tree had been fashioned into the shape of a windmill building, with arms made of wood sprouting from the top. They were actually in motion, whirling slowly but steadily. It was a strange conceit, not particularly beautiful either, but curious. On a level closer to the house was a more natural sort of garden with bushes and flowers whose species could not be determined in March, though some of them were roses.
    “That monstrosity must cost a fortune to keep pruned,” Mrs. Winton remarked. “It would take a full-time gardener to keep it so neat. We shall change into evening wear, Davinia, and meet at six-thirty to go downstairs.”
    “Dinner is at seven,” I reminded her.
    “In such a house as this, there will be a drink before dinner. You may be with old Lady Blythe, but I shall go below at six-thirty.”
    I did not make any of the ironic comments that occurred to me. God was being kind, and I would behave myself. Our trunks had arrived in our rooms and were in the process of being unpacked. I had little choice of an outfit. All the lovely gowns Norman had bought me must wait till the period of mourning was up. I felt no inclination to deck myself out in my finery in any case. It rested always like a heavy weight on my heart, the grief for Norman. How different, how infinitely happy this arrival might have been, with him by my side, the master of the house, and myself its mistress.
    I shook out my good black evening dress, and the crinoline to go beneath it, and after washing away the dust of travel, put them on. The gown I had had copied from a picture of our heartbroken Queen’s mourning outfit for her husband. Indeed I associated myself closely with Queen Victoria, as Norman’s death had occurred a month to the day after Prince Albert’s. It was on December 15, 1861, that the shocking news of the Prince’s death from typhoid reached us. We were just preparing to retire when a neighbor—Mrs. Winton, in fact—came bustling in with the sad tale.
    I little thought at the time how soon I too would be donning crape. The Queen’s hairdo did not suit me. I did tame down my more stylish dos. Norman was a great one for wanting me to appear fashionable. I now arranged my black curls discreetly in a chignon at the back of my head. It made me look older, yet I was not so old that I failed to notice the style suited me. It lent me an air of sophistication my insular life did not entitle me to. I had lost ten pounds since the tragedy. For a week afterwards it had been impossible to eat a bite, and ever since I could only peck at my food.
    Every dish set before me brought up some happy memory of a meal shared with Norman. A great ball of misery stuck in my throat, like a physical thing, impeding the passage of food. Now when I looked into the mirror I saw a pale woman with hollows at the back of her cheeks. Her dark eyes looked sad. When she tried to smile it was a travesty. The only emotion other than grief that came easily, it seemed, was anger. Why had He done it? It wasn’t better to have loved and lost. It was ever so much worse. I was never mean and miserable before I met Norman.
    But I must overcome this angry grief. The Blythes had kindly invited me to Blythe Wyngate to meet them, to stay with them, and I would be a civil guest and relation, and perhaps a resident. I wouldn’t try to forget Norman. Why should I? He was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Instead I would discover things about his youth, for really he had told me