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an asset to any man of gentlemanly rank and would only detract from sales of the poor man’s book, but despite the titters of shock from the excited crowd, and some outrage in the local newspapers, the Scandinavian and his exercise regimen became quite the fashion that summer. Both Agatha and John read the little book to be able to keep up with dinner party conversation, but John had been won over by the commonsense ideas—sleeping with the windows open, daily sponge baths—and six years on, he had developed an admirably slimmed physique. He chose to be modest about it and was a source of frustration to his tailor, from whom he insisted on ordering clothing in his old measurements.
    Agatha had regretfully resigned herself to the fact that she did not have her husband’s willpower. Her inconsistent use of the program, combined with her love of cakes, cream, and good, thick gravy, had destined her to retain a plump midsection that refused to succumb to exercise or to corseting. A roll of flesh got in her way now as she lay on the grass, feet tucked under the bench’s crossbars, and attempted to haul herself up to a sitting position, twelve times. However, she enjoyed the routine here in her private garden, on a dry, sunny day, and she looked forward to the end of the set, when she allowed herself the prescribed dose of the sun’s healthy rays.
    —
    Beatrice awoke to sunlight appearing to dance on blue wallpaper and the sound of birds squabbling for their breakfast in unseen trees. Her window was open, and the breeze brought the scent of a hot morning into the slight coolness of the room. For a moment she could not place where she was, and with a brief skip of her heart wondered if she were not still in Italy, in the village above Florence, and her father already at the
pensione
breakfast table on the terrace below, reading two-day-old newspapers and calling for more hot milk. She squeezed down into the pillow and tried to remain in the semiwaking moment that felt so happy.
    When she finally opened her eyes, the unfamiliar room swam into focus along with a slow awareness that she had made good her escape from her aunt’s family. She was in Sussex, and her room smelled of the garden outside and, faintly, of the sea. At least the grief, which weighted her limbs to her bed most mornings, could not win today against the anticipation of a new beginning. For the first time in months, she almost sprang from her bed to greet the summer day.
    Scrubbed and tidy, in a gray cotton dress with a tucked bodice and a wide belt fastened with bone buttons, Beatrice left her traveling bag closed and ready by the bedroom door and descended in search of breakfast. The polished hall was quiet and empty, as were the drawing room and a dining room across the way. Some faint sounds came from behind the stairs, but Beatrice hesitated to penetrate further into the house before being invited. The drawing room’s French windows stood open to the breeze, and so, anxious not to be seen hovering, she slipped out onto the terrace beyond.
    The stone terrace already looked older than the house, softened to a pleasant mossy gray under the relentless dripping of English rain, its stone balusters pressed by fat shrubs and draped in twisting vines of honeysuckle, wisteria, and the teacup-sized pale green flowers of a clematis. White roses climbed up the house from beds filled with brilliant blue agapanthus. Beatrice stooped to cup in her hands a waxy blue flower head as large as a hat and to wonder if plants ever sensed how far they were from home: this African lily carried on ships to England in the time of Henry VIII, rhododendrons dug from the rippled flanks of Chinese mountains, the passionflower twining about itself in air so much drier than the South American rain forest. Beyond the terrace, a croquet lawn fell away on its farthest edge to a lower terrace of rolling grass, hedged above the steep escarpment of the ridge. Below, the stacked red roofs of