Ralf has invited friends and neighbours to the celebration. He is delighted to say, he mentions with an attempt at casualness that does not fool his daughter for one moment, that Benedict Warin is coming. ‘And he tells me he is going to bring his son, Ivo,’ Ralf adds.
Helewise drops her head and meekly says, ‘Oh, that will be nice.’
As soon as she can she races away to find Elena. She has her recent gift of the length of sunshine-yellow silk and she wants Elena to help her make the most gorgeous gown that a girl ever wore. Elena, aware that something has happened to her young charge and pretty certain what it is, falls in readily with the plan. Helewise strips to her under-gown and Elena studies her through narrowed eyes. ‘You’re blossoming, young Helewise,’ she observes. Then, with a lascivious wink that makes Helewise laugh and, at the same time, sends her blood pounding, she says, ‘Blooming like a flower beneath some man’s scrutiny, is that it?’
Helewise does not answer. Instead she picks up the bolt of silk and lifts her arms in a wide gesture, spreading the lovely fabric and letting it settle around her. ‘What do you think, Elena?’ she asks. ‘Tight bodice and flowing skirt?
Elena goes ‘Mmm,’ in the sort of tone she has always used when aware that Helewise knows something that she doesn’t. Then, apparently giving in, she says, ‘Aye, my girl.’ With a grin, she adds, ‘Show off your assets, eh?’
They make a gown that is the most beautiful that Helewise has ever possessed. The silk — imported to France from Genoa and spun in Paris into a cloth that has a subtle self-coloured pattern of flowers and ivy leaves — is heavy and shines like the sun going down in the evening sky. It has a square, deep neckline that shows off the upper curves of Helewise’s smooth white breasts. The sleeves are narrow at the shoulder and flare widely at the wrists. The waist is tight-fitting and, at the hips, the glorious fabric flares out to a generous hem. Over the gown Helewise will wear a little bodice embroidered with pearls. Elena also makes an under-tunic in a deeper shade of yellow that is almost gold; it will show at wrist and neckline and it echoes the colour of Helewise’s red-gold hair.
On her head she will wear, just like the peasant girls, a garland of flowers.
For the two days before May Day she does not see Ivo. After a fortnight in which they have — unknown to anybody else — been together for a part of every day, the waiting seems endless. But inevitably, time goes by — with infinitesimal slowness — and at last it is May eve. Helewise bids her family a decorous goodnight and retires early to bed. She looks hungrily at the yellow gown spread on her clothes chest, at the garland of flowers that rests in a shallow bowl of cool water to keep it fresh. She imagines herself dressing in the morning. Imagines Ivo when he sees her.
It is almost too much to bear.
The day is sunny and warm and everyone is thrilled to think that the gods are blessing their celebration with such perfect weather. The cooking fires are lit early; benches are lugged out of the house for the ladies and straw bales for the better class of men; everyone else will sit on the good green grass. Ivo’s steward is busy organising games for the older children — races, both on their ponies, if they have them, and on their own two feet — and hunts for favours. His wife is looking after the smaller children and Elena has set aside a quiet, cool place in the shade of the oak trees where overwrought toddlers and babies can sleep when necessary. The May Pole has been decorated with ribbons and a small band of musicians are practising their tunes. There will be other dancing too, in addition to the traditional slow measures around the pole that symbolise the Sun’s course; groups of men bearing sticks are going through their moves, anxious to get everything perfect so that the people clap and the lord and his lady are pleased.
Helewise has put on her gown and her flower garland. She cannot eat and uses the excuse that her dress is tight and she wants to have room for the feast later. Her mother nods without comment; Elena shoots her a look. The family leave the house in the middle of the morning — it has been a tense wait for impatient Helewise, trying to appear only as excited as she usually is instead of filled with this nervous, thrilling sensation for which she has no name — and, with Ralf and Emma in the lead, they make their slow and stately way down to the meadow, greeting people as they go.
It is some time before Helewise spots Ivo. She has already spoken to his father and been introduced to Benedict’s companion, a silent man named Martin who bears a slight resemblance to his master; she wonders if they are related but such is her state of mind this day that the matter slips from her consciousness almost as soon as it has entered it. Benedict gives her a beaming smile and then a wink, as if to say, I know full well what you’re up to! Then he engages Ralf in a conversation about wool export and Helewise, blush fading, scuttles away. She circles the field, slowly, trying to appear leisurely and graceful, and her sister Aeleis bounds around her, drawing her attention to the horses, the ponies, the hounds — ‘Oh, look at the puppy! Isn’t he sweet? Do you think Father would let me have him?’ — although Helewise hardly hears.
Then she sees him, leaning against one of the great oaks, arms crossed over his broad chest. He wears a tunic in dark green with a lighter green border in which there are touches of rich gold embroidery. His brown hair shines with health and there are bright streaks in it, as if he has been riding bare-headed beneath the sun. He smiles at her and in that moment she knows that he loves her just as she loves him. She walks slowly up to him.
‘Hello, sweeting,’ he says softly. ‘I have never seen you look more beautiful.’
She glances down at herself as if she has forgotten what she is wearing, hardly likely since she thought ahead to this moment, dwelling on its infinite possibilities, with every stitch that she sewed. ‘Thank you.’
Their eyes lock again. Then he says, ‘I think that I should be presented to your parents, with your permission. My father has suggested that he be the one to do it.’
‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she agrees. ‘Shall we find him and take him to my father and mother?’
Ivo hesitates. It seems that he does not know how these things are accomplished any more than she does. ‘Perhaps my father should perform this presentation with me alone,’ he suggests. ‘If you and I are both there, may it not appear that we have — I mean, that there is a degree of acquaintance between us that your parents have not known about?’
She understands. ‘Yes. Very well, then. But we shall be together again later?’ She cannot bear the thought that he is to slip off into the crowd and that will be that.
But he is smiling, gently, lovingly. Promisingly. ‘Of course we shall,’ he says. He blows her a kiss and then he is gone. She watches him stride away. He walks well. She hungers for him.
Time passes. To Helewise in her frantic impatience it feels like hours. Then she is summoned to her father’s side and finds him standing with Benedict Warin, the watchful Martin hovering nearby. Ivo is to his father’s right, a pace behind. Ralf says, ‘Helewise, you have already met Ivo, I understand.’ He gives her a keen glance but she makes herself stare back straight into his eyes; she has done things that he does not know about but, she tells herself, nothing terrible. Nothing more than passionate kisses that she has wished with all her heart, soul and body would go on into whatever comes next.