“No, but what a lovely effect,” said Aunt Agatha. Hugh had to admit that in the waning, horizontal light of evening, with the flicker of the torches and bonfire, trees darkening all around and the colorful crowd pressing forward from their tables to see, the procession held a strange power.
As the music paused, the players moved into a square formation, ready to dance. There was some clapping from the crowd, and small children wriggled forward under their mothers’ skirts to better see the show.
“?‘The Crowning of the Hop King,’?” announced Daniel, reading from a paper plucked from his opened portfolio and then allowing it to flutter to the ground.
“Being a special adaptation of the poem ‘To the David of Florence’ by Daniel Bookham, reimagined as homage to the last day of our harvest…”
“Perhaps the last harvest?” he added and dropped the second page as the fiddler scrambled through a brief musical fanfare.
“I do hope it rhymes,” said Lady Emily. “It’s not proper poetry if it isn’t in iambic pentameter.”
“Your marble thigh so sinewed, whitely,
Would that my hand might press to warm
Life to the veins, set sap to running—
And harvest the shepherd home to the farm.”
As Daniel paused, the fiddle, joined by a pennywhistle, began the same minuet again, in a minor key, and Beatrice and Celeste laid their gifts at the farm girl’s feet and entwined their arms for the first figure of the dance.
“King of your own flesh, Prince of your own eyes,
None has dominion higher than the pure.
I touch like a priest but the rope of your sandal,
Pledge you all honor, and faith that endures.”
Craigmore and the farmer’s daughter took their turn at the figure. Hugh could not be sure at such a distance, but he thought Beatrice’s shoulders might be shuddering with suppressed laughter. All four dancers began a stately circle, hands aloft.
“Boy, man, and king, thy reign o’erpowers me,
Renders my lyre faint like unto death.
King of the hop fields, kiss but my forehead,
Wake me, your giant, and let flower all the earth.”
The last pages fluttered from Daniel’s grasp as he lowered himself to one knee. The dancers came to a stop, the Hop King bowing to his Queen, the handmaidens in low curtsies, arms raised to the sky. As the players stilled in final tableau, three small girls ran from behind the stage with baskets and began to pelt the dancers with flowers. Agatha saw Beatrice take a large dahlia to the cheek but remain still, albeit blinking. The music finished with a long last note.
The crowd erupted in applause and laughter and loud discussions up and down the tables.
“Bravo, bravo,” said Mr. Tillingham, clapping from his chair. “Poet, poet!”
Daniel rose slowly, removing the red scarf from his neck and using it to lead the players in a sweeping bow. As he stepped back into the line, Craigmore dropped the hand of the farmer’s daughter and caught Daniel round the neck in a friendly hold. Daniel squirmed and grinned but made no effort to free himself until Craigmore let go to offer him a slap on the back and to grab his hand as all the players linked arms for another set of bows. The applause was louder and more sustained than Hugh thought warranted as Craigmore led the farmer’s daughter to her father and the others returned to their table. Hugh leaned towards his aunt to say, “Daniel will be impossibly smug in the morning.”
“It was well done though,” said his aunt.
“You young ladies performed beautifully,” said Lady Emily. “Bettina Fothergill must secure all three of you at once for her grand float in the parade. So far she has suggested only girls so homely I fear she means to be sure Britannia is not outshone by her handmaidens.”
Hugh noticed Lord North, who was not clapping but stood with his hands clasped behind him, whisper something to his wife. He then pursed his lips and frowned. To Colonel Wheaton’s asking him how he enjoyed the performance, he responded with a nod. “I enjoyed the musical background. Partial to the violin.”
“Your son is a good sport to jump in and help with our amateur entertainments,” said Agatha to the Countess. “It’s nice to bring the people more wholesome fare than music-hall numbers and dancing girls.”
“Though there may be hidden decadence in poetry dedicated to spirits and such,” said Lady North. “We must be always on our guard against the slippery attractions of false idols.”
“That we must,” said Lord North.
“Of course we must,” said Agatha and then turned to roll her eyes at Hugh and Beatrice.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” said Lord North, turning to Colonel Wheaton. “We are expected early at Dover for the review at the castle, and I know my wife tires easily.”
“Will you not be dancing?” asked Agatha. “The band will play for hours.”
“I regret our duties must come first,” said Lord North. “It has been a pleasure to meet you and your husband, Mrs. Kent.”
“Are you leaving too, Aunt?” asked Hugh in a low voice as Colonel Wheaton and Lady Emily gathered themselves to leave.
“I certainly am not,” said Agatha. “Why, they are just calling for the Gay Gordons, and I may possibly dance the Sir Roger de Coverley if the digestion of my dinner allows.” She leaned closer to Hugh and Beatrice to whisper, “If Mr. Tillingham wants to leave he can commandeer a farm cart.”
“Good for you, Mrs. Kent,” said Beatrice as Agatha allowed her husband to lead her away to the forming dance sets.
“Do you dance, Mademoiselle Celeste?” asked Daniel. Upon her assent, he begged the privilege, and she gave him her hand with the sort of trusting smile that only Daniel could draw from young ladies. Hugh felt a sharp envy at his cousin’s easy, open manner and found it harder than usual to compose both his face and his thoughts to make his own awkward overture.
“Will you dance, Miss Nash?” he asked. “Only I must warn you my country-dancing experience is largely theoretical.”
“I would be happy to, Mr. Grange,” said Beatrice. “Fortunately for you, in my schoolgirl dancing class, I was always one of the tallest and so I am used to leading.” He would have bantered again, finding some self-deprecation with which to puncture the awkwardness of conversation. But her hand was warm from her exertions, and she seemed to glow under her crown of hops. In the flicker from the bonfire and the swell of the music, Hugh found her transformed, and he did not want to speak but only to lead her whirling and laughing into the dance.
The following morning, Hugh was settled in a wing chair in his workroom, nominally enthralled by a new book on the composition of monkey brains, an advance copy sent by a leading German researcher to Hugh’s surgeon just before war was declared. But in reality, after the weeks of sleepless nights cramming for examinations while drilling all day, and shivering through the finals in a chilly mess hall that seemed to breathe failure, he was enjoying dozing in a slab of sunlight, feeling the pleasant aftereffects of a good breakfast. He did wonder idly whether the German scientist would be able to keep his monkeys through the war, whether monkeys learned German commands as easily as English, and whether human language had a hierarchy and where English should be considered on such a hierarchy against, say, French or Latin.