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country house in Provence.
    “Gracious, you’re not bringing her in the back way, are you?” someone called out.
    Will closed the doors behind them. He put his hand on her back as if to steady her. His touch was warm, pleasant, mannerly. Authoritative in a quietly masculine way.
    They stood in a center hallway that ran from the front door to the screened porch at the back. The hall was wide enough for various pieces of heavy antique furniture. Stepping into the house was like stepping into Alice’s looking glass; all scale and proportion seemed off. Viewed from the outside the house did not seem so extensive and imposing, but the interior was very large and grand, with high ceilings and spacious, ornately furnished rooms opening off the expansive center hallway. Scattered oriental rugs deadened their footsteps as they walked along the darkly polished, wide-planked floor. The house was very stately and well cared for, and yet there was a certain chill to the air, Ava noticed, an uneasy sensation that old houses sometimes convey, of ancient tragedy and loss.
    “They’re here, they’re here!” someone cried, and a moment later, Fanny burst through one of the doorways and came hurrying down the hallway, her hands fluttering around her skirt like a covey of rising doves. Her red-gold hair was cut in a stylish bob, and she looked even younger than Ava remembered, with her pale skin and large gray eyes. Ava had no time to examine her further, for she found herself pulled suddenly into a fragrant embrace. “We’re so glad you’ve come,” Fanny said in her ear, then stepped back, squeezing Ava’s hands before letting them go.
    “Thank you for having me,” Ava said. She suddenly remembered the gift basket. “Oh, wait, I have something for you in the car.”
    “Don’t worry about that right now,” Fanny said, taking Ava’s arm and steering her down the hallway.
    “Come and have a drink,” Josephine called.
    She was sitting on a long sofa in the library and she rose, smiling, her eyes resting lightly on Ava’s face, and yet managing to encompass all of her in that glance, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her short spiky hair. “We’re so glad you could come,” she murmured, putting her hand out to Ava. Her skin was cool and smooth to the touch. Like her sister, she was slim, and her hair was cut stylishly, although she did not color it, and it curved like two snowy wings on either side of her handsome face.
    “And who’s this pretty thing?” Maitland bellowed, standing beside a tall sideboard laden with decanters and glassware and a silver cocktail shaker. He strode quickly across the room, pulling Ava into a clumsy embrace and kissing her loudly on both cheeks.
    “Oh, Mait, don’t crush her!” Fanny cried but he only laughed and said, “I kiss all the pretty girls!” His accent was nearly unintelligible to Ava, much more hurried and softly rounded than the aunts’, as if he spoke through a mouthful of marbles. He was stylishly dressed in pleated trousers and a blue shirt. He wore a sport coat and a tie, and a pair of leather loafers.
    He rubbed his hands together fiercely. “Now, what can I get you?” he said to Ava, indicating the decanters on the sideboard.
    They were drinking something call a Gin Rickey, which Ava gathered from their conversation they had learned to drink in the twenties up at Vanderbilt. “We made it in the bathtub,” Fanny said gaily, lifting her rocks glass.
    “We didn’t make it,” Josephine said mildly. “We bought it from bootleggers who did. It was during Prohibition.”
    Ava looked around the room in astonishment. “You went to college in the nineteen-twenties?” she said.
    “I was sixteen when I went up to Vanderbilt in 1927,” Josephine said. “In those days you finished high school at sixteen.”
    Ava stared blankly at Josephine. “But that would make you—”
    “Oh, I know. Don’t say it,” Fanny cried.
    “Eighty-seven,” Josephine finished